Chairman Scott Leads House Passage of the Keep Kids Fed Act

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, S-2089 was amended to replace the language of that bill with the language of H.R. 8150, the bipartisan and bicameral Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022, in order to send the bill to the Senate for expedited passage. Roughly two years ago, our communities experienced an unprecedented surge in child hunger spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just weeks into the pandemic, more than one of every three households with children, nearly half of all mothers with young children, struggled with food insecurity. In response, Congress took decisive action to ensure that child nutrition programs, our best tools for addressing child hunger, could continue feeding hungry children during the pandemic. One of the most important steps we took was providing child nutrition programs with the flexibility they needed to expand access to school meals and address challenges of serving students who were not physically in the school buildings. This relief made a measurable difference in our fight against child hunger. By expanding access to child nutrition programs, we allowed an additional 10 million students to receive free school meals each day. And from January 2021 to April 2021, food shortages among households with children fell by more than 40 percent. Regrettably, unless Congress acts, these key flexibilities would expire at the end of this month. The bipartisan and bicameral Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022 is likely our best and last opportunity to preserve relief for child nutrition programs. This legislation will maintain school meal flexibilities that do not increase costs, continue flexibilities to support summer food programs this year, provide additional support for child and adult child and adult care feeding programs, and increase school meal reimbursement rates for this upcoming school year. As we continue to recover from the pandemic, the Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022 will take a critical step to support child nutrition programs and prevent children from going hungry during the ongoing public health emergency. This is a step well worth taking, and I want to thank the ranking member of the full committee, Dr. Fox, for working with me and Senators Stabenow and Boosman on this legislation. I urge a yes vote on the bill and reserve the balance of my time.