"Exploring State Options in SNAP"
House Subcommittee on Nutrition, Foreign Agriculture, and Horticulture
2025-09-09
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Source: Congress.gov
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The committee will come to order. Welcome and thank you for joining us today for this hearing entitled Exploring State Options and SNAP. After brief opening remarks, members will receive testimony from our witnesses today and the hearing will be open to questions. In consultation with the ranking member and pursuant to rule 11E, I want to make members of the subcommittee aware that members of the full committee may join us here today. Good morning and welcome to this morning's hearing on examining state options in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as SNAP. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today and for sharing their expertise on this very important topic. Before getting to the main focus of today's hearing, I want to set the record straight on reforms to SNAP included in the Working Family Tax Bill, or HR1, and dispel some of the false narratives I know we will hear in this room today. First and foremost, HR1 protects and strengthens SNAP's ability to serve our most vulnerable neighbors in need. We are stopping federal and state executive overreach that has eroded once bipartisan work requirements for able-bodied adults without young children. We are finally creating real accountability incentives for states with high payment error rates, which I will remind everybody, hurts the participants first and foremost. And we are protecting the hardworking American taxpayer who has been footing a $100 billion annual SNAP bill that increased by close to 70% in five years. No one in this room should be defending $10 billion a year in federal SNAP benefits going out the door incorrectly. Nor should they defend 40% of able-bodied adults without children on SNAP living under state waivers of work requirements without the economic conditions to warrant them. But this was the status quo before HR1. The facts are that this program was on an unsustainable trajectory and HR1 is putting it back on a better path. SNAP must be based on the goal of reaching nutrition independence, financial independence, and the American dream. I also need to address the ongoing fearmongering by some of the leaders in my home state of Minnesota about the Working Families Tax Cuts bill and how they will affect and impact our counties.
Minnesota, along with nine other states, has chosen to administer SNAP at the county level. In fact, this is one of several state options that Congress allows. I want to be very clear and set the record straight. States are not required to push SNAP costs, neither administrative nor potential benefit costs, to the counties. In fact, in six of the ten county administered states, the state government shares the SNAP administrative expenses with the counties. In one state, the state covers the entire cost of the SNAP administrative expenses. so despite what local officials may be hearing from their governors the states have a shared responsibility to prioritize prioritize and invest this critical nutrition program and there is a precedent for it this morning i sent a letter to my governor governor walls urging him to re-examine his budget priorities reducing the state's error rates and taking accountability by restoring program integrity Congress can no longer turn a blind eye to states that mismanage federal funds at the expense of vulnerable families. I would ask for unanimous consent to submit this letter for the record. I hope Governor Walz will work with me and other local officials to ensure Minnesota meets the intent of H.R. 1's historic reforms. But the primary topic before us today is much larger and far reaching. While SNAP is a federal program, there are numerous state options, allowing states some flexibilities in operating their programs. As states implement the program changes included in HR1, they will need to adapt and reexamine the SNAP options they have adopted to date. It's also important for us as legislators to regularly review the SNAP options currently allowable under federal law to know if changes or new flexibilities are warranted. I know some of our witnesses today will speak specifically to that. State options in SNAP are large in scope, impacting eligibility criteria, benefit levels, and even in what counties federal work requirements are in effect. It may come as a surprise to people that SNAP gross income and asset limits set in federal law are not actually the law in 44 states.
This is something we need to address in this body. now more than ever states will need to carefully examine each state option knowing how it will impact staffing program costs and most importantly error rates i look forward to learning more from each of our witnesses today about how states and counties are utilizing these program flexibilities the impacts they have on administration and participation, and what things we should be thinking about as we look forward to the future of SNAP. Ms. Green, Mrs. Bevins, and Ms. Schmitz, thank you again for being here today. I understand Ms. Green and Ms. Schmitz have never testified before to Congress. We look forward to hearing from you today. With that, I'd like to now welcome the distinguished ranking member and gentlelady from Connecticut, Mrs. Hayes, for any opening remarks that she would like to give.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to first welcome our witnesses to the very first subcommittee hearing on nutrition and foreign agriculture in the 119th Congress. As the ranking member of this subcommittee, I came to Congress to work. I care very deeply about this issue of food security.
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