By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday blocked the Trump administration from preventing food stamp recipients in five states from using their benefits to buy sugary foods and drinks.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture lacked the authority under federal law to approve state requests to bar recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from using benefits to buy sugary foods and drinks. She sided with five plaintiffs who argued the restrictions would undermine their access to food.
The USDA has approved “food restriction” waivers in 23 states allowing them to restrict SNAP participants from using their benefits to buy products such as soda and candy. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have endorsed the waivers as part of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement.
SNAP, commonly known as the food stamp program, provides monthly benefits to 42 million low-income Americans, and is administered by the USDA in partnership with state governments.
“The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store, and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals,” Jackson said. “But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.”
The USDA defended the policy and signaled it would continue pursuing restrictions on the use of SNAP benefits for certain foods.
“The idea that taxpayer funds should not be used to purchase junk food should not be controversial,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement. “USDA will not be backing down from the fight to Make America Healthy Again, including for families and communities reliant on SNAP.”
The plaintiffs – who live in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia – said in their March lawsuit that they or family members rely on the restricted foods to manage health conditions such as diabetes and allergies, or to obtain energy boosts needed to conduct their daily lives.
They asked the court to block the restrictions in their respective states.
“The court’s ruling is a major step in restoring essential food assistance to the millions of families that rely on SNAP nationwide,” said Katharine Deabler-Meadows, an attorney for the plaintiffs at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
In Monday’s ruling, Jackson said the USDA could approve waivers only for limited purposes allowed under U.S. law such as improving the efficiency of the SNAP program.
“Improving the health and diet of SNAP recipients is not included,” Jackson said.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Sanjeev Miglani)
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