May 16, 2018 - NHLA Urges Congress to Reject House Farm Bill

May 16, 2018

NHLA URGES CONGRESS TO REJECT HOUSE FARM BILL
Partisan bill would cut food assistance for low-income families with children, and expose farmworkers to more pesticides

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 46 of the nation’s preeminent Latino advocacy organizations, is urging members of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against passage of H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, also known as the House Farm Bill. In a letter sent to U.S. Representatives today, NHLA leaders argue that the bill’s provisions related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), pesticides, health, and conservation programs would be detrimental to Latino and other communities across the United States.

The House Farm Bill includes sweeping changes to SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, that would be devastating to Latinos, farmworkers and other low-income rural and urban communities. SNAP is a particularly important resource for the 22 percent of Latino households with children that were food insecure in 2016. Approximately 10 million low-income Latinos utilize SNAP in a typical month. SNAP is also a powerful anti-poverty tool, having lifted at least 1.2 million Latinos out of poverty in 2015.

The House Farm Bill would make it more difficult for these vulnerable families to put food on the table by drastically cutting SNAP funding, fundamentally restructuring SNAP by shifting funds from benefits to untested work programs, and erecting barriers to participation through burdensome paperwork and reporting requirements.

In addition to the changes to SNAP, the House Farm Bill contains provisions that would endanger the health and environment of farmworkers and other rural residents. Many provisions of the bill encourage excessive pesticide use without ensuring effective protections from exposure for workers and their families. The bill also contains provisions that would prioritize logging interests in federal forestry policy and expand the use of Association Health Plans, which fail to provide enrollees with important health services, such as cervical cancer screenings, and drive up premiums of other health plans in health insurance marketplaces.

“The Farm Bill, as passed out of the House Agriculture Committee, can only be described as harmful, untested, and wasteful. The proposed $17 billion cut to SNAP is mean-spirited and will undermine SNAP’s success by creating an entirely new and untested bureaucracy that has no hope of helping people find jobs, but is absolutely guaranteed to take away food assistance from millions. The deeply partisan proposal would punish recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 20 percent of which are Latino, with unforgiving work-requirement penalties that could deny benefits for up to three years. Women, who head the majority of families living in poverty, and their children, would be the hardest hit by the bill’s unreasonably harmful provisions. Hispanic Federation strongly opposes the 2018 Farm Bill. We urge Congress to reject it and begin work on a new, more thoughtful proposal,” said José Calderón, President, Hispanic Federation, Co-Chair, NHLA Environment and Energy Committee.

“The House Agriculture Committee’s Farm Bill is yet another example of the Trump administration and Congressional Republican Leadership’s continued assault on policies that give more Americans, including Latinos, the opportunity for better health and greater economic mobility. SNAP is a powerful tool that has helped more than 40 million Americans, including 10 million Latinos, fight hunger and poverty,” said UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguía.

“It is especially shameful to see such a vital program face drastic cuts and distorted to punish the very hardworking families it’s designed to help. We challenge any Member of Congress to explain to their constituents, including Latino voters, how this bill would do much else than increase hunger and hardship,” concluded Murguía.

“This proposal undermines important measures to protect farmworkers and the public from exposure to pesticides. Congress should reject this one-sided legislation,” said Virginia Ruiz, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health at Farmworker Justice and Co-Chair of NHLA’s Energy and Environment Committee.

NHLA’s letter to the U.S. House of Representatives can be found at this link: https://goo.gl/CYnNfu

###

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

| Michael Torra | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | (202) 425-0582 |

ABOUT THE NATIONAL HISPANIC LEADERSHIP AGENDA:

The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda is composed of 46 of the leading national and regional Latino civil rights and public policy organizations and other elected officials, and prominent Latinos Americans. NHLA coalition members represent the diversity of the Latino community – Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Latino Americans. NHLA’s mission calls for unity among Latinos around the country to provide the Latino community with greater visibility and a clearer, stronger influence in our country’s affairs. NHLA brings together Latino leaders to establish policy priorities that address, and raise public awareness of, the major issues affecting the Latino community and the nation as a whole. For more information, please visit: www.nationalhispanicleadership.org.

NHLA MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS: