Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Senate Passage Of The Bipartisan Keep Kids Fed Act

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding Senate passage of the Keep Kids Fed Act, which will allow local governments to continue to provide free meals to children. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks.

 Tonight, the Senate is passing bipartisan legislation that will keep America’s school kids fed for the summer. A hungry child is a horrible thing to see. And because of the amazing persistent work of a great bipartisan team—Senator Stabenow, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Boozman, Ranking Member of the Agriculture Committee—that won’t happen.

 The worst of the pandemic is hopefully behind us, but schools across the country are still suffering from the challenges that COVID created: supply chain issues are making it hard to provide students the free meals they need to stay healthy over the summer.

 It would have been just awful for the Senate to leave without taking action to make sure we provided the waivers necessary to make sure kids can get the free meals they need over the summer.

 Kids deserve to be healthy, they deserve to be well-fed, and by extending these nutrition waivers before they expire we can make sure that no student will have to worry about where they are going to get their lunch during the summer.

 There is no justification in the world for letting these waivers come to an end, and the good, persistent, steady hard work of Senator Stabenow and Boozman made sure that didn’t happen. 

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