Oregon Food Bank Action Alert on Food Stamps

In June, we strongly opposed passage of the House version of the farm bill because of proposed cuts to SNAP (formerly called food stamps) that would have been equivalent to the Oregon Food Bank Network—including 21 regional food banks and more than 900 hunger-relief agencies—shutting down for more than five years.
That version of the farm bill failed to pass the House, but on July 11, the House of Representatives split nutrition programs—including SNAP—out of the farm bill entirely and passed a partial farm bill which would only fund agriculture programs.  We expect that this unprecedented split of the farm bill into an agriculture bill and a separate nutrition bill could result in deeper cuts and harmful policy changes to SNAP.
What happens next is unclear because the House’s action is unprecedented. The Senate is preparing to reconcile the House-passed bill with the Senate-passed bill. At this point, it is particularly important for the Senate to remain resolute about opposing SNAP cuts in the final version of the bill.
Please contact your senators today. Urge them to speak with Senator Debbie Stabenow (chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who will oversee the next step of the farm bill’s legislative process) and tell her that the farm bill must not increase hunger in the U.S. by including cuts to SNAP.