TEFAP Alliance Blog

June 2004

In This Issue:
• Appropriations Start; Fiscal 2005 Budget Still Stalled
• Remarks by USDA Official Criticized
• Milwaukee Contract Allows Milk to Cheese Conversion
• New Food Items May Be Tested in 2005
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Appropriations Start; Fiscal 2005 Budget Still Stalled
With a shortened session already more than half over, congressional subcommittees have begun fashioning fiscal year 2005 spending bills in the absence of an overriding budget document for next year. Budget negotiations between Republican leaders in the House and Senate have been stalled since April over whether any additional tax cuts should be offset with spending decreases.
Less than 50 legislative days remain in the second session of the 108th Congress, if legislators stick to their planned schedule and an October 1 target date for adjournment and campaigning. Between now and that proposed fall end-of-session, there is a Fourth of July recess set for June 26 to July 6 and a six-week summer recess beginning on July 25.
The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee met on June 14 to begin the funding process for most federal nutrition assistance programs next year. Preliminary information coming from the Subcommittee revealed that most programs would be kept at fiscal year 2004 levels, though rising food prices may cause caseload cutbacks unless more funds are found.
In particular jeopardy is the WIC Program, which has been beset by rapidly increasing dairy prices and high vendor costs from a growing number of stores that sell only WIC foods. The Subcommittee tentatively allocated $4.9 billion for WIC, some $120 million over the President’s budget request, but $234 million short of the amount advocates say will be needed to avoid caseload reductions next year.
Other subcommittee actions included: $33.6 billion in mandatory spending for the Food Stamp Program; level funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) – $140 million for food purchases and $50 million for storage and distribution, with authority to transfer $10 million of food funds to distribution; and funding of $108 million for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), barely enough to maintain caseload after USDA recovers $6.5 million from an “inventory reduction.”
What remains uncertain is when and how Congress will finish the appropriations process. Without a budget, with an election looming, and with relatively few days left to make decisions, funding outcomes before October 1 remain problematic. “In the absence of strong leadership or some new revenue source, there’s simply not enough dollars to go around,” stated a Subcommittee staffer.

Remarks by USDA Official Criticized
A comment by a top federal official that longer lines for emergency food in Ohio may be the result of some “people taking the easy way out,” have sparked a reaction from Presidential candidate John Kerry all the way down to emergency food providers.
Eric Bost, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, told The Columbus [OH] Dispatch on June 6 that he was dubious of reports that hunger is increasing. “There’s a bump, but how much of that is due to people taking the easy way out? I don’t know,” he said, during an interview that was part of the newspaper’s six-day series on hunger, titled “Lines of Despair.”
Democrat Kerry criticized Bost’s remarks as typical of the Bush Administration. “They are out of touch,” claimed Kerry in a statement to The Dispatch. “I know there are thousands of struggling families in Ohio who are forced to go to food banks to make ends meet. To suggest that these hard working moms and dads who are just trying to put food on their table are somehow ‘taking the easy way out’ is insulting,” he added. “These families deserve our support, not condemnation.”
In his comments to The Dispatch, Bost also voiced skepticism about the food insecurity statistics that USDA estimates annually, in conjunction with the Census Bureau. “Everyone likes that (survey) except me,” he noted, claiming some of the questions were too vague, causing exaggerated results.
That comment also elicited a reaction. Calling Bost’s remarks “unfortunate,” Senator Tom Harkin, the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said: “These are families trying to get by on budgets that simply do not stretch far enough to cover rent, utilities, clothing, medical care, and food. By no means are they choosing to take the easy way out.”
Local advocates in Ohio were dismayed by Bost’s statements. Lisa Hamler-Podolski, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks, commented that Bost makes “unfair judgments of people who use Ohio food banks and food pantries, and underestimates the courage it takes for many people to ask for help.”

Milwaukee Contract Allows Milk to Cheese Conversion
Following up on a pilot project last August, USDA has entered into a one-year contract with the Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee (HTFM) to turn more than half a million pounds of non-fat dry milk in government storage into low-fat mozzarella cheese for low-income residents of Wisconsin’s largest city.
The milk-to-cheese conversion effort, requested by Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl, the top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, was initially rebuffed by USDA. But at a Subcommittee hearing on March 24, 2004, USDA Secretary Ann Veneman announced that she had reversed her position and would authorize the deal. It took several months, however, to finalize the contract.
Continuation of the pilot project resulted, in part, from the aggressive media tactics used by the HTFM, a group critical of the government’s stockpile of more than one billion pounds of dry milk, some of which was being sent to Western states to feed livestock affected by drought. Under a banner of “Kids, not cows,” HTFM executive director Sherrie Tussler held a news conference in March with frowning children drinking re-mixed dry milk, then vigorously digging in to a mozzarella-topped pizza. Tussler emphasized that cheese is a versatile item desired by the poor and can be used as a snack and in casseroles and sandwiches.
Spiraling dairy prices and increased government aid to hunger populations overseas have diminished the non-fat dry milk surplus somewhat, but the government retains hundreds of millions of pounds that could be converted to cheese. Nonetheless, USDA will allow HTFM and its partner in the project, Alto Dairy Cooperative of Waupun, only one truckload (approximately 43,000 pounds of milk) per month to be made into cheese.
Unfortunately, only people in Milwaukee will be getting the prized commodity cheese. Both USDA and congressional officials are adamant that they will support no other special projects to convert surplus dry milk into cheese under TEFAP.

New Food Items May Be Tested in 2005
This month USDA’s Food Distribution Division officially posted its list of 62 foods available for TEFAP in fiscal year 2004 that can be purchased with entitlement dollars. There are no new items, though the pack sizes on some have been changed. New meat-based items may be offered on a pilot basis in fiscal year 2005, however. These include canned beef in tomato sauce, canned pork in tomato sauce, and canned beef chili.
Finally, USDA announced on May 28 that it would purchase up to 14.5 million pounds of apricots. The fruit will be canned and offered to TEFAP as a bonus item.

WASHINGTON UPDATE is published monthly for the TEFAP Alliance by Weinberg & Vauthier Consulting, 419 West Broad Street, Suite 204, Falls Church, VA 22046; telephone: 703-532-5700; fax: 703-532-5780; email:

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