Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
The smells of back-to-school: freshly sharpened pencils, old leather seats of yellow busses, chalk dust, and lettuce? This fall, Whole Foods and Chef Ann Cooper, "The Renegade Lunch Lady," in conjunction with her Food Family Farming Foundation's premier project, The Lunch Box, have implemented a remarkable new program, which will change school lunch-rooms across the nation - The Great American Salad Bar Project. With rates of nutrition-related disease and childhood obesity on the rise, now is the time to start making positive change in the way we feed our children.
The initial phase of the Great American Salad Bar Project will raise enough money, via local Whole Foods Markets, thru in-store and online donations, to grant at least one salad bar a school within fifty miles of the store. That's almost 300 salad bars! Schools that meet the requirements are encouraged to apply on the Great American Salad Bar Project website for review and will be chosen by a simple set of criteria.
A salad bar in a school cafeteria provides a healthy option for students on a daily basis. A typical salad bar will include: fresh multi-colored lettuce, a variety of vegetable "toppings" such as beets, carrots, and jicama, proteins such as chicken, beans, cottage cheese or tofu, whole grains, fresh fruit and healthy salad dressings. One requirement for schools who wish to apply is that they participate in the National School Lunch Program. The National School Lunch Program is a federally funded program that provides low-cost or free meals to children across the country. Children who participate in the National School Lunch Program are often most at-risk for the effects of a poor diet.
School is a sacred space for learning, so why shouldn't this extend into the cafeteria? School meals should not only provide the nourishment children need to excel throughout the school day, but should also serve as a lesson in making life-long wellness choices. Offering salad at lunch helps to provide this lesson and teaches children to include a variety of fresh vegetables, fruit, whole grains and healthy proteins in their diet. The salad bar provides an array of options and allows students to try new items on their own. Often students will make choices from the salad bar and create delicious and colorful dishes to suit their taste.
The facts are simple: this could quite possibly be the first generation of children in our country's history to die at a younger age than their parents.
Government statistics show that 4.3 million children aged 10-14 will become overweight or obese in the next 24 months. In addition, it is predicted by the Center for Disease Control that of all children born in the year 2000, one-third will contract diabetes. These outrageous statistics can only be stopped by a massive overhaul of the way our children eat and the Great American Salad Bar Project is one giant step in the right direction.
Take this wonderful opportunity to do something good for yourself and your community. Take a trip to your local Whole Foods, purchase some of the healthy food they offer for yourself and your family, and then donate what you can to the Great American Salad Bar project. Know that with your donation you are participating in an effort to change the future health of our country.
Eat well, use your dollar to vote for healthy food, and help us change the way kids eat across the country for the better.
To donate online or to find out more about the Great American Salad Bar Project please visit our website at: http://www.saladbarproject.org/
I've got the remains of a school lunch here with me. It was eaten by an 8 year old girl. Last year, she bought the school lunch every day but she said it's not good food and this year she wants to bring her lunch. So Mom packed her Sunny D, a granola bar, lunchables, and cookies. I've posted their ingredients and nutrition information below. (Consider this Exhibit A for why we need healthy school food that the kids want to eat.)
UPDATE: I've found nutrition info for 8 year old girls and added it below, at the bottom.
I wrote up a piece on school lunch for another site but I'm cross-posting it here too (below). If you're a regular reader of this blog, much of what I wrote won't be new to you. But if you want the overall status of the child nutrition bill, read on.
It's amazing what happens when the First Lady writes a Washington Post op ed calling for the passage of a bill. The pathetically slow, broken Senate gets moving and actually passes it! At least, that's what happened in this case.
Blanche Lincoln's child nutrition bill just passed the Senate by unanimous consent. My god. The Republicans don't mind apologizing to BP or taking all kinds of other wildly unpopular positions, but even they won't vote against feeding hungry children.
The bill is flawed, primarily in its lack of funding for healthy school lunches, but it brings the National School Lunch Program far closer to perfection in just about every other way. The bill is not yet ready for Obama's desk. First, the full House needs to vote on Rep. George Miller's child nutrition bill, a bill that is slightly more generous than Lincoln's but still underfunded, and then the two chambers must reconcile their versions of the bill. We still don't know how the House bill will be paid for, as it must be before reaching the House floor. Thus, the questions remaining are: How much money will child nutrition receive, and where will it come from? The other question, of course, is whether the bill will pass before the deadline of September 30, but if the Senate has passed its version, I am hopeful.
Joe Sestak was the sole Democrat to vote against starting an organic pilot program for school lunch in a party-line vote this past week. All of the Dems on the House Education and Labor committee voted for it - except Sestak. All of the Republicans voted against it.
Rep. Sestak - perhaps soon to be Sen. Sestak - why do you think that little, developing children's bodies should be exposed to pesticide residues in their food? Many pesticides are proven or suspected neurotoxins, carcinogens, and endocrine disruptors. And your state has a vibrant organic farming industry. You've done wrong by the kids, but you've also done wrong by the farmers of Pennsylvania.
Some of the biggest news for me are two great new pilot programs established with amendments added yesterday. First, there is an organic foods pilot program that provides $10 million per year between 2011 and 2015 to selected schools with high low-income populations. That was proposed by Lynn Woolsey and Dennis Kucinich and it passed by a roll call vote. My hunch is that the funding is discretionary, which means that the Appropriations committee gets to decide whether to fund the program or not. I'm trying to find the roll call vote to see who voted or and against this but I don't think it's online yet.
Second, Jared Polis proposed a vegan (plant-based) foods pilot program, which passed in a voice vote. Some schools will participate in a program offering kids "plant based protein" (a.k.a. whole grains, nuts, beans, and veggies) and then they will evaluate which foods are superior in cost-effectiveness, marketability to school food authorities, ease of preparation and use, and acceptance by the kids. Yay! Awesome!
Last but hardly least, the bill includes $50 million in funding for Farm to School grants.
UPDATE: I got this one wrong when I first reported it. Apparently, Judith Biggert (R-IL), who represents the town where I grew up), never actually proposed an amendment. And that makes sense because I don't think her idea is within the jurisdiction of the Education and Labor committee anyway. She recommended lowering the amount of Adjusted Gross Income a farmer could make both on-farm and off in order to be eligible for subsidies. After she said it, I sent around an email to other ag policy geeks, including some who are even geekier than myself. They told me that AGI was a bad measure to go by to cap subsidies because anyone with a decent accountant could figure out how to duck under the law and qualify for subsidies anyway. A better idea, they said, were payment limits, capping subsidies at a certain amount (like $250,000). And that sounds good to me.
The House Education and Labor committee will mark up and most likely pass the school lunch bill today. The markup is scheduled for 2pm Eastern Time and you can view it live here. Once they've passed the bill out of committee, the next step will be the House floor.
UPDATE: The markup will be live-tweeted @edlabordems using the hash-tag #CNR (which stands for Child Nutrition Reauthorization)
UPDATE: The markup will finish today but the vote might be tomorrow.
There's a great piece on Politico about Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer. He's been making some noise in Washington lately, and one of his big issues is "fiscal discipline." Translation: Don't get your hopes up about increased funding for ANYTHING.
Yesterday, the House Education and Labor committee held a hearing on school lunch. You can read about the first half here. The second half of the school lunch hearing featured a panel with many speakers:
Tom Colicchio, Chef and Restaurateur
Major General Paul D. Monroe, U.S. Army (Ret.), Executive Advisory Council Mission: Readiness
Dr. Eduardo J. Sanchez, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas
James D. Weill, President Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)
Robert Rector, Senior Research Fellow
Welfare and Family Issues The Heritage Foundation
Today the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on school lunch and child nutrition. The big news for me from the first half of the hearing is that Rep. Kucinich has an absolutely BRILLIANT idea to pay for healthy school lunch and Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is an idiot.
Below is my write-up of the first half of this hearing. I'll soon post a diary on the second half.
One of my favorite comedians just became one of my favorite activists! Sarah Silverman wrote the following to Rep. George Miller:
"I'm writing to you about something that has shocked and offended me. And trust me when I say it takes a lot to shock and offend me. Some of the foods we're feeding kids in schools are repulsive - and that unhealthy food is feeding the childhood obesity epidemic.
"All kids - vegetarian or not - should have healthy options. I think that we forget the simple fact that what we put in our bodies directly affects our bodies. Many kids aren't able to bring lunches from home - they have to eat what's in the lunch line. Without healthful options in the caf eteria, we're doing our children and the future of our country a great disservice.
She continues:
If we help children develop healthy habits early on, they'll have a lower risk of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in the future. And that would mean lower health care costs. See? Only good comes from this. I know you're as serious as I am about helping kids succeed and stay healthy.
Yes, Rep. Miller, believer her when she says it takes a lot to offend her. This is a girl who made herself famous with a comedy routine that begins: "I was licking jelly off of my boyfriend's penis and all of a sudden I'm thinking, 'Oh My God, I'm turning into my mother!'" If Sarah Silverman's offended by the quality of school lunch, it must be time to do something about it.
Rep. George Miller just introduced a bipartisan child nutrition reauthorization bill at a press conference featuring TV Network's Rachael Ray. Within the "Beltway Bubble" of DC, everyone expected it to be a much better bill than the Senate bill introduced by Blanche Lincoln. And the bill has a lot of great things in it.
It improves food safety for school food in a much needed way. A GAO report found last year that when foods were recalled, the steps to remove those foods from school meals weren't necessarily being taken. So that's good.
It also improves access to free meals to eligible children by allowing direct certification - if a kid gets Medicaid or SCHIP, they automatically qualify for free meals. Also, in high poverty areas, all the kids get free meals no matter what. That's HUGE because there's often a stigma to getting free meals, and sometimes kids who are entitled to them won't actually eat them because they are afraid of being made fun of by peers. Where there's universal access to free meals in high poverty areas, all the kids will eat so nobody has to worry about being uncool.
Unfortunately, the the increase in the school lunch reimbursement rate - the amount spent per kid per meal - only goes up by 6 cents. That's the same as in the Senate bill. It's not enough to make the changes we need in school food. Activists have called for increases between $.35 and $1.00, and I tend to think the amount needed is closer to $1.00.
This is a great bill in many respects and Rep. Miller is a wonderful representative whose intentions I don't doubt at all. I know he wants to help kids and I know he wants to improve lunches. So why do we have so much money for bailouts and wars but only 6 cents for our kids?
Today, the W.K. Kellogg foundation released the findings of a poll about school lunch. I've included their press release below (and I haven't had time to read the full report yet) but here's the 30 second summary of what they found:
70% of Americans want pizza served in school lunches once a week or not at all
Over 60% want chicken nuggets and hamburgers served in school lunches once a week or not at all.
55% of Americans (and 63% of parents of school-age children) describe the nutritional quality of local school food as "poor" or "only fair"
In other words, Americans think that school food is shit and they want it changed. They get it that junk foods like cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets are not foods that children should eat frequently. Yet 90% of school menus include these very same foods that the parents want their children to eat less of. Why?
