Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - June 18, 2009)

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By Mr. BENNET (for himself, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Casey):

S. 1293. A bill to amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to improve automatic enrollment procedures for the national school lunch and school breakfast programs, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill with Senators Brown of Ohio and Casey of Pennsylvania called the Enhancing Child Health with Automatic Enrollment for School Meals Act. We wrote this legislation because too many kids across this country are not getting the free school meals their families are qualified to receive. As members of the Agriculture Committee's subcommittee on Nutrition, Senators Brown, Casey and I share an interest in eradicating childhood hunger and increasing the efficiency of the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs.

Our bill builds on the foundation laid during the 2004 child nutrition reauthorization which included a mandatory phase-in of an automatic enrollment process called `direct certification.' Our bill stipulates that schools, districts, and states must directly certify at least 95 percent of children who can be enrolled in the national school lunch and breakfast programs using this method. The intent of this provision is to modernize the enrollment process by reducing reliance on paper applications and to improve access to school meal programs by ensuring kids who should be receiving free school meals actually receive them.

Because we want to reward achievement and encourage improvements to the school meal enrollment process, our bill includes performance awards for the five states which make the best use of direct certification and for the five states which show the most improvement from one school year to the next. Additionally, our bill requires states which are unable to meet the 95 percent standard to submit a report to Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture that identifies the challenges prohibiting effective use of direct certification and maps out a plan for improvement.

As former Superintendent of Denver Public Schools I cannot stress enough the importance of reducing red tape and administrative costs in schools. We cannot expect our children to focus on fractions when their stomachs are growling nor can we expect teachers, principals and school administrators to prepare our children to be tomorrow's leaders if they are spending their time filling out paperwork. That's why modernizing the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs is one of my top priorities for the child nutrition reauthorization this Fall and that is why I am introducing this bill today.

Two additional provisions in the bill would eliminate paperwork and improve the existing system of determining whether or not kids qualify for free meals. The first is a clarification that sending a letter in the mail to a child's household letting them know they are eligible for free school meals is not an acceptable means of direct certification. A child who can be enrolled for free school meals automatically should be enrolled without any action on behalf of the child's household. We make this clarification because a vast number of paper notifications sent to families are not returned and, therefore, kids miss out on meals they should receive.

The second is a request for a study from the U.S. Department of Education that would help determine how data the Department of Education is currently collecting is being used currently and could be used in the future to ensure all kids who should receive free school meals are provided those meals.

Initially, Senators Brown, Casey and I were working on ways to expand access to free school meals independently, but now we are working collaboratively. Meeting President Obama's goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015 will require all hands on deck. Last week Senator Casey, along with Senator Specter and myself, introduced the Paperless Enrollment for School Meals Act to make it easier for schools and districts to serve free meals to all children. The bill we are introducing today is yet another installment in the ongoing dialog with Chairman Harkin, members of the Agriculture Committee and the USDA in preparation for reauthorizing child nutrition and WIC programs in the coming months.

In Colorado and around the nation there is a renewed call for common sense measures to improve existing programs and provide assistance to those who need them most during these tough economic times. I encourage all Senators to do right by our children and support this legislation and the principles of the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs Senators Brown, Casey and I have outlined.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

S. 1293

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