Funding Food Aid for Malnutrition
Floor Speech
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Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today for the sixth time to call for the Trump administration to restore funding for lifesaving food aid for malnourished children.
It has been 2 months since Congress passed and President Trump signed a funding bill for fiscal year 2025. It included money that can be used to continue purchasing ready-to-use therapeutic food, a miracle peanut paste that saves the lives of starving children and is produced by, among others, Edesia Nutrition in my district in Rhode Island with ingredients sourced from States all across our country.
Here we are in May, and since the Trump administration came into office in January, not a single dollar of that money has gone to buying this promised lifesaving food aid. Instead, Edesia has boxes of food stuck in warehouses, factory workers laid off, with children suffering from severe malnutrition and famine.
This is food that has already been paid for by the American taxpayers that could be used to feed starving children who are victims of war and famine, but instead, it sits in a warehouse benefiting no one.
We need the funding that this Congress provided to go through now because starving children can't wait. To make matters worse, the administration's fiscal year 2026 so-called skinny budget completely eliminates funding for the Food for Peace program, a bipartisan program that is the main source of funding for food assistance to combat hunger and malnutrition while also supporting America's farmers and agriculture industry. We must reject that plan and continue to fund Food for Peace.
In the meantime, though, this is urgent. For fiscal year 2025, the funding has already been appropriated. It has been approved. It has been signed by the President. We need the administration to put in the new orders to continue this flow of lifesaving aid to children.
Jacobs), a person who has been a real champion on the issue of hunger around the world, to hear her thoughts on the subject.
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Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Jacobs for her long body of work championing children around the world, particularly on the issue of malnutrition. I will continue to stand in this Chamber every day we are in session and speak on this topic until funding for RUTF is restored.
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