Editor: This has been such a soap opera! First they said they wouldn’t pay them, then judges ordered them to pay, then they said they’d pay some of them, then they said they weren’t paying any of them, Now they’re paying full benefits. 😮💨
The U.S. Department of Agriculture told states Friday it was releasing full November funding for the nation’s major food assistance program that helps 42 million people afford groceries, complying with a federal court order issued Thursday.
Payments would be sent to states Friday, the department’s Food and Nutrition Service said in a letter to state directors of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which is funded by the federal government and administered by the states. Patrick A. Penn, the deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, wrote the two-paragraph letter.
“Later today, FNS will complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor,” Penn wrote. “We will keep you as up to date as possible on any future developments and appreciate your continued partnership to serve program beneficiaries across the country.”
The move undermines an appeal President Donald Trump’s administration made following Thursday’s order from Chief U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island. The appeal said the government shutdown, and the resulting lack of funding for SNAP, was Congress’ fault and that the department could not be compelled to transfer other funds to pay for SNAP benefits.
A Department of Justice spokesperson said in a Friday email to States Newsroom the government must comply with McConnell’s order until and unless it is given relief by a higher court.
The shutdown, which started when Congress failed to pass annual spending laws by Oct. 1, left SNAP without any appropriated funding for November and beyond. The administration reversed its own guidance and declined to use a contingency fund and other accounts within the USDA held more than enough to cover some benefits.
Appeal in limbo
The move from the USDA was in contrast to an appeals court brief the Justice Department filed on USDA’s behalf Friday morning, leaving the future of that litigation unclear.
The appeal asked the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for an emergency freeze on McConnell’s order, which it characterized as a wild overreach to a reasonable agency decision.
A three-judge panel for the appeals court denied the government’s request for a stay on the merits late Friday, while saying it would soon decide on a motion for an administrative stay.
The judges — David J. Barron, Gustavo A. Gelpí and Julie Rikelman — were all appointed by Democratic presidents, though Gelpí was appointed to a lower court by Republican President George W. Bush.
The agency said it complied with a Nov. 1 McConnell order to either pay full benefits by Nov. 3 or partial benefits by Nov. 5 by sending states a memo and tables to calculate partial benefits.
The USDA had the power to decide to pay only partial benefits from a contingency fund that held about $4.5 billion, the government argued. SNAP benefits cost the government about $9 billion per month.
In McConnell’s Thursday order, he rejected that argument, saying the partial payment had to be made by Nov. 5 to be in compliance with the Oct. 31 order.
The judge said Thursday that because the department had not met that deadline, it must transfer money from outside the contingency fund to make November SNAP benefits whole.
The administration argued to the 1st Circuit that order was beyond McConnell’s power.
“There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions,” the appeal said.
The administration has resisted suggestions, including from McConnell, that it tap a $23 billion fund meant for child nutrition programs in order to pay November SNAP benefits.
The administration asked the appeals court to pause McConnell’s order by 4 p.m. Eastern time Friday.
Problem of government’s ‘own making’
The coalition of nonprofits and city governments that sued to force the administration to pay November benefits responded later Friday morning that USDA was to blame for the tight timeline that provoked the department’s complaints.
The department chose, between the two options offered by McConnell, to pay partial benefits “but with complete disregard for the conditions the district court had attached to it,” the coalition wrote Friday.
“Defendants’ current situation, therefore, is entirely the product of their own making,” they wrote. “They purported to comply with an order of the district court in a manner that was not compliant; having done so, they cannot complain that the district court ordered them to take the other path.”
The coalition also sharply criticized the administration’s decision not to use the child nutrition program fund. The fund had enough money to pay benefits until at least May, the coalition lawyers wrote Friday. But denying SNAP benefits for November would leave 16 million children hungry this month, they said.
Major shutdown issue
The issue has become a focus of the shutdown, with each party in Washington blaming the other for denying food assistance for low-income people and those with disabilities.
Friday’s rapid turnaround by USDA appeared to take even lawmakers by surprise.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, posted to social media after the notice had gone out that Trump was “trying to weasel his way out of a court order requiring him to help millions of hungry Americans.”
Rep. Angie Craig, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, said in a late Friday statement the administration’s mixed messaging led to mass confusion, leaving some states to fully fund SNAP while others have not.
“The Trump administration needs to tell American households and states in plain language whether it is continuing to appeal the Rhode Island court order or if it is fully funding November SNAP benefits,” she said. “Americans are still living with the uncertainty around what the hell is happening here. The incompetence is stunning.”
Republicans have also highlighted the issue while urging Democrats to accept a stopgap funding measure to reopen the government at fiscal 2025 spending levels.
“There are people going hungry right now because Democrats refuse to agree to a clean, nonpartisan funding extension,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said on the Senate floor Friday.
Democrats have blocked a House-passed bill to reopen the government, seeking assurances that Republicans will work to address expiring tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
This article was first published on News From the States and republished here under a Creative Commons License.
