The federal government supports over a dozen child nutrition programs and other activities benefitting more than 35 million children.  Federal outlays for all of the child nutrition programs are expected to total $12.8 billion in the current fiscal year.  Additional federal spending on public assistance efforts such as food stamps more than doubles that amount.  The combination of all these efforts provides a nutritional safety net that is vital to the lives of millions of our nation's children.

 Child nutrition programs have been discussed frequently since they were last reauthorized in 1994.  Three years ago, the Committee, and Congress as a whole, examined child nutrition  programs during the welfare reform debate.  Substantial reforms were made to some of the programs such as the Child and Adult Care Food Program, while smaller changes were made to other programs such as the National School Lunch Program.  A proposal to block grant child nutrition programs was debated.  School lunch became a part of the lexicon of the welfare reform debate.   In the end, Congress wisely chose to maintain the federal guarantee for school lunches.

 Our attention now turns to reauthorizing many of these programs.  This year, we are working in the framework of a balanced budget.  We do not anticipate having new money to expand existing programs.  It is this committee's responsibility to target our resources to ensure that our nation's children have access to a nutritious diet.

 Although the school lunch and breakfast programs do not require reathorization, this process gives us an opportunity to review them.  This morning we will look at the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program, the Summer Food Service Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.  Practically all of our public schools and one-fifth of private schools participate in the school lunch program serving, on average, over 26 million children each school day .  Just over 70% of schools participate in the school breakfast program serving, on average, almost 7 million children each school day.  The Summer Food Service Program, which provides subsidized meals and snacks to low-income children during the summer months, served over 2 million children in fiscal year 1997.  Over 1 million children per day were provided subsidized meals at child care centers and about 970,000 children were provided daily meals at family day care homes.  I commend all those involved in making these programs successful in positively affecting the health and well-being of our nation’s children.

 Today, we will hear from a number of prominent leaders in child nutrition.  We are pleased to begin the hearing with testimony from Representative Joseph Kennedy.  We look forward to hearing from the Department of Agriculture on their ideas for reauthorizing the child nutrition programs.  We will then hear from some individuals intimately involved in administering child nutrition programs including the president of the American School Food Service Association, Melinda Turner, a representative from a child and adult care food program sponsoring organization, Linda Locke, and the director of the Iowa Food Bank, Karen Ford.  In addition to these witnesses, we look forward to hearing from Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities.

 Lugar has been a child nutrition advocate in the Senate for more than 20 years.  During the 1995 welfare reform debate, Lugar successfully fought to continue the federal school lunch program, rather than send it to the states in block grants.  “It is unwise in a time of dynamic change and rapid shifts in the economic cycle to throw away the nutritional safety net for children,” Lugar said.