Hoeven Meets with North Dakota School Nutrition Professionals to Push Child Nutrition Reauthorization

Senator John Hoeven, who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, met with the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction and school food service directors to plan strategies to pass the Improving Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act of 2016.

The legislation includes an agreement the senator worked for that will help to ease regulatory mandates on whole grains and sodium to alleviate unintended challenges facing school meal programs. The Senate Agriculture Committee approved the legislation unanimously earlier this year and Hoeven is continuing to push to get it to the Senate floor.

"On a national level, we worked with the School Nutrition Association and the National School Boards Association to write language that will provide school districts with needed flexibility for sodium levels and whole grain requirements," Hoeven said. "The Agriculture Committee, USDA and the White House have now agreed to incorporate those provisions so that our schools will be able to serve nutritious meals within their budgets and that students will find appealing. Now, we need to work with Senate leadership and enlist the aid of state nutrition professionals in North Dakota and across the country to bring this bill to the Senate floor for a vote."

Last year, Hoeven and Senator Angus King (I-Maine) introduced the bipartisan Healthy School Meals Flexibility Act in the Senate. The measure sought to provide permanent flexibility for schools to comply with the USDA's sodium and whole grain requirements under the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. The Agriculture Committee passed bill incorporates an agreement, based off the Hoeven-King legislation, notably with regard to whole grains and sodium.

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