Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania for doing such a great job on this. I know he has worked really, really hard on it. We have talked about the number of committee hearings that have been dedicated to just nutrition. That is because the nutrition title of the farm bill accounts for about 80 percent of the total authorization. So it is really important that we get it right. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express support for the Agriculture and Nutrition Act, specifically, the improvements that we are making here in the critical nutrition title under the leadership of my friend Mr. Thompson, who has done a fantastic job. Currently, there is a loophole related to heating and cooling allowances that is often used to artificially increase SNAP benefits. States are given the flexibility under the previous iteration of the SNAP program to use the standard utility allowances for heating and cooling to ease SNAP administration. Households automatically qualify for the SUA if they receive Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, it is called the LIHEAP program, payments, if they receive payments from that program. States, in order to increase SNAP benefits, provide LIHEAP payments of just greater than a $20 minimum threshold, allowing households to qualify for the SUA, thus increasing the SNAP benefits the household receives, even though the household may not have actual heating and cooling expenses.…”