A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from approving state requests seeking to bar Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients from using benefits to buy junk food.
Secretary Brooke Rollins’s Department of Agriculture has signed waiver requests from multiple states allowing them to ban the purchase of sugary items, such as soda, candy, and energy drinks, with SNAP benefits. But the effort, endorsed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was challenged in March by plaintiffs from five states who viewed the state waivers as an attack on “essential food assistance” that “destabilize food access.”
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama-era appointee, sided with plaintiffs in her ruling this week, concluding USDA lacks the authority under federal law to approve state requests restricting SNAP benefits. The Washington, D.C., judge said USDA failed to abide “by the notice requirement of their own regulation, 7 C.F.R. § 282.1(b), which requires USDA to post notice of pilot projects in the Federal Register thirty days before implementation if they are likely to have a significant impact on the public.”
“The agency’s terse statement that the pilot projects would not have a significant impact on the public is entitled to little deference and it is directly contrary to the facts in the administrative record,” Jackson wrote. “The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals. But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.”
Jackson’s ruling applies to Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, where the plaintiffs live.
The development marks a blow for the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, which initially sparked under Kennedy’s leadership and was embraced by Rollins at USDA. The agency leaders have encouraged states to target sugary and processed foods, among other issues, as part of an effort aimed at reducing chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
So far, Rollins has approved waivers from 23 states, allowing them to restrict food stamp purchases of sugary foods to “promote healthier options for families in need.” Hawaii, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas are among the states that have sent SNAP restriction requests to USDA. Prior to those waivers being signed, food stamp recipients could buy anything except alcohol, tobacco, hot and prepared foods, and personal care products, according to USDA.
“Taxpayers are subsidizing poor health,” Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) said last April alongside Rollins. “We’re paying for it on the front end and the back end.”
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USDA signaled Monday it would continue to push for restrictions on SNAP benefits.
“The idea that taxpayer funds should not be used to purchase junk food should not be controversial,” a USDA spokesperson told Reuters. “USDA will not be backing down from the fight to Make America Healthy Again, including for families and communities reliant on SNAP.”
