TEFAP Legislation

Dear Foodlinks America Reader,

One of the principle reasons we publish and distribute this newsletter is to provide publicity, information, and advocacy on The Emergency Food Assistance Program or TEFAP. We view TEFAP as the backbone of the anti-hunger movement in the United States, directly providing hundreds of millions of pounds of government purchased commodities, the wherewithal to collect other donated foods, and the financial support to distribute them all to tens of millions of needy Americans.

The federal legislation that authorizes TEFAP – the Farm Bill – comes up for renewal in 2012, and we will have the once or twice in a decade opportunity to influence the future direction and scope of the program. We ask you to read and review the following brief legislative platform concerning TEFAP and the 2012 Farm Bill.

If you agree with some or all of our positions, please endorse the "We Need A Billion" campaign. Click here to Email us your name, organization or agency affiliation, city, and state and we will add you to the list of those who are striving to make TEFAP better and more effective than ever.

Thanks A Million . . . BUT . . . We Need A Billion

Thanks a million, Congress, for providing regular increases in food and distribution funds for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) over the years;

Thanks a million, USDA, for aggressively seeking additional bonus and surplus commodities that can be channeled into TEFAP, including more than 429 million pounds in fiscal 2009; and

Thanks a million, food banks, food pantries, and emergency food providers around the nation for your extraordinary efforts to receive and promptly distribute TEFAP food in order to alleviate hunger for so many Americans in need

BUT

We Need at least a Billion dollars for TEFAP annually starting no later than 2012!

The goal of the TEFAP Alliance will be to secure at least $1 billion per year in mandatory, entitlement funding for TEFAP in the 2012 Farm Bill.

We seek annual funding of $800 million for food and $200 million for distribution expenses, with a funding increase of $50 million per year over the life of the Farm Bill, maintaining the 4:1 ratio of food to distribution dollars.

In addition, we seek to:

- remove or revise the cost-of-living adjustment required annually for TEFAP entitlement food to insure that funding does not decline if food prices are down;

- legislatively change the name of the "administration" account to "distribution" and make that funding mandatory; and

- allow states to carry forward unused food entitlement funds from one fiscal year to the next.

Several different types of legislation affect TEFAP on a regular or periodic basis: The authorization for the statutory establishment of the program; appropriations to provide funding to operate the program; and related issues, such as the purchase or barter of surplus commodities. More detail on these topics follows below.

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) was created under The Emergency Food Assistance Act of 1983 and has been amended a number of times over the past 30 years. Currently TEFAP is authorized approximately every five years as part of the “Farm Bill,” an omnibus piece of agriculture-related legislation that provides statutory authority for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), commodity programs, and other nutrition assistance.

Statutorily, TEFAP resides in Title 7 of the U.S. Code, under Agriculture, in Chapter 102, Section 7501. Code sections on the program cover: definitions; the availability of commodities; state plans; processing costs; federal and state responsibilities; assurances; state and local supplementation of commodities; appropriations; allotment and delivery of commodities; and settlement and adjustment of claims. The Code section may be reviewed at: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/usc.cgi?ACTION=BROWSE&TITLE=7USCC102&PDFS=YES.

TEFAP authorizing language was amended in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, also known as the Farm Bill, which passed in May 2008, and 1) provided an immediate $50 million infusion of funds for food purchases in fiscal year 2008; 2) raised the funding level for TEFAP food purchases in fiscal 2009 and later years; and 3) increased the authorization limit for TEFAP distribution and storage funds from $60 million annually to $100 million.

No other program changes were included in the latest Farm Bill, and it is unlikely that the program will face a legislative re-examination until the 2008 Farm Bill is up for renewal in 2012. As of April 2010, Congress had already begun to schedule hearings on the 2012 renewal of the Farm Bill, TEFAP, and other programs.

Currently, funding for TEFAP comes from two sources – an annual allocation of “entitlement” (i.e. secure or “mandatory) funding to purchase food for the program and a discretionary appropriation of funds for distribution and storage. On occasion, supplemental funding for TEFAP gets attached to another legislative vehicle (e.g. TEFAP received funding in 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – ARRA, also known as the economic stimulus legislation).

The 2008 Farm Bill, enacted in May 2008, contained increased funding levels both for food purchases and distribution/transportation. Purchases of commodities, made through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), were allocated $140 million annually under the 2002 Farm Bill. The 2008 Farm Bill increased the allocation to $190 million for the remainder of fiscal year 2008, $250 million in fiscal year 2009 and the $250 million figure adjusted for inflation in fiscal years 2010 through 2012. Funds from the CCC are entitlement funds and are not subject to the annual appropriations process.

TEFAP storage and distribution funding, on the other hand, is discretionary. Although the authorization level has now been raised to $100 million, the full amount is not necessarily appropriated. From fiscal 2002 through fiscal 2008, the authorization limit for storage and distribution was $60 million a year, but the appropriation never topped $50 million. Because TEFAP agencies did not have adequate funds to transport the commodities, Congress has been allowing states to convert a portion of the food money to storage and distribution costs. Up to 10 percent of food funds annually has been transferable for distribution purposes on a nationwide basis.

The basic arrangement for storage and distribution funding is likely to be maintained for the near future due to funding limitations. For fiscal year 2009, Congress approved $49.5 million in appropriated funds for TEFAP storage and distribution, supplemented by $50 million spread over two years from ARRA. Consequently, in fiscal year 2010, there was $74.5 million total available for distribution expenses.

From time to time legislation on other issues may impact TEFAP. This situation has occurred recently – in February 2009 – when funding for both TEFAP food purchases and distribution expenses were included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the economic stimulus bill. That legislation added another badly needed $100 million of commodity foods to the program and allocated, at state discretion, up to $50 million more over a two-year period for distribution expenses to help meet the rising costs of storage and fuel.

Because states tend to have TEFAP commodities in storage on an ongoing basis, they are frequently the first emergency supplies available in disaster relief situations. Often, TEFAP food can be used for immediate needs to feed the hungry, homeless, and dispossessed and replenished later. This occurred as part of the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Because TEFAP is a national outlet for surplus commodities, the program sometimes gets caught up in distribution concerns. When USDA took action in 2007 to barter bulk agricultural commodities for finished end products that could be distributed to needy households, TEFAP was selected as a primary vehicle to do that.