WASHINGTON –
The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee passed the 2013 Farm Bill yesterday,
giving the green light for the legislation to make its way to the Senate floor
for a vote as early as next week.
Of concern
to NACS members is a provision that would grant the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) full discretion to prevent convenience stores from accepting
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as
food stamps, if those locations have excessive sales of alcohol, tobacco or
hot food.
The
provision is similar to language contained in last year’s Farm Bill, which would have prohibited any food retailer from participating in the SNAP program
if 45% or more of the retailer’s revenue is derived from the combined sales of
hot food, alcohol and tobacco.
NACS is
opposed to granting the USDA the authority to arbitrarily prevent c-stores that
otherwise meet all of SNAP’s eligibility criteria from participating in the
program simply because the department disapproves of retailers who are lawfully
selling certain products.
NACS is also
educating members of Congress about how essential the SNAP program is to
convenience stores and low-income customers across the country. This is
especially prevalent in rural communities where economically challenged
Americans have few places to shop for food, and urban and rural communities
where few food stores are open late at night.
The U.S. House Committee on Agriculture is taking up its version of the
Farm Bill today — this version does not
currently include the troubling language that the Senate Agriculture Committee approved
yesterday.
Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has expressed a desire to bring the Farm Bill
to the Senate floor quickly, while House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor
(R-VA) is suggesting that he would bring the legislation to the full House for
a vote sometime this summer.
If the House
and Senate pass their version of the Farm Bill, a conference committee will be
tasked with ironing out the differences between the two bills.
For more
information, contact NACS Director of Government Relations Corey Fitze.