Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 - Veto - Continued

Floor Speech

FOOD, CONSERVATION, AND ENERGY ACT OF 2008--VETO--Continued -- (Senate - May 22, 2008)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to address the importance of the nutrition assistance title of the farm bill. The bill goes a long way toward ensuring that families in America will have food on their table, even when times are tough. The bill also clarifies that their rights to certain nutrition services are enforceable.

Sections 4116 through 4118 of the bill specifically reinforce Congress's longstanding intention that the Food Stamp Act's provisions and its regulations are fully enforceable and should be enforced. The courts have historically and correctly understood Congress's intent that low-income households have the right to enforce these provisions.

The language of the Food Stamp Act and its implementing regulations--parts 271, 272, 273, and so on--have the kind of clear language required for judicial enforcement. We made sure that they are mandatory, not aspirational, and that they set out requirements for how each individual is to be treated, not general program-wide goals. They clearly define the benefited class as low-income people receiving or seeking food assistance. Nothing in the act or regulations suggests that substantial compliance overall excuses denying any individual the benefit of these rules.

Along with oversight by the Department of Agriculture, lawsuits by families participating in food stamps are one of the ways we can ensure the Food Stamp Program fulfills its purpose. Indeed, it is partly because applicants and recipients can and do bring lawsuits to enforce program rules that the Department has not been required to withhold funds from States to enforce service standards in the program.

This legislation also makes explicit that various civil rights laws are binding in the Food Stamp Program. This is not a change--these laws and their regulations have applied since they were written, and both have been intended to be fully enforceable. This legislation just reiterates a point that we hope and believe was already clear.

None of this would have been a question until two recent, unfortunate court decisions. The first case, Reynolds, comes from the Second Circuit. It applied a standard of analysis that departed from all prior Federal court precedent and held that applicants and recipients could hold a state accountable for the maladministration of the program by local food stamp agencies only in the rarest of circumstances. The act is and has been clear that States are responsible for full compliance with all applicable regulations. States' responsibility is no less because they have chosen to have counties or other local agencies operate the program for them. The option of local administration exists only as a courtesy or convenience to the States, not to reduce their accountability. The State is just as responsible for what the local agency does as if the State agency performed those acts itself. This legislation emphasizes that point.

In the other case, called Almendarez, a Federal district court refused to consider a suit brought by low-income people who need assistance in a language other than English to apply for food stamps. The Department's regulations clearly provide rights for families that need language assistance. Now the act explicitly confirms that those regulations are enforceable. Future cases can be decided on the merits, as they should be.

This bipartisan legislation goes a long way toward providing food for working families, and providing the security of knowing that help is enforceable by law. I thank the chairman and the committee for their tremendous work.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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