In approving soda ban for food stamps, US govt reverses decades of policy

WASHINGTON – For two decades, the federal government has rejected states’ efforts to ban purchases of sugary drinks using food stamps, hesitant, in part, to cross an unusual coalition of corporate interests and anti-poverty groups.

Now, the Trump administration has waded in, approving a first-of-its-kind waiver on May 19 for Nebraska to ban purchases of soda and energy drinks through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP), known as food stamps.

It is likely to pave the way for more state waivers, signaling a sharp shift in nutrition policy.

Under the proposal, Nebraska will establish a programme, beginning in January 2026 and affecting some 150,000 food stamp recipients in the state.

Nebraska, in its waiver application, said it would regularly survey participants in the state to evaluate changes in their spending habits and examine retailer data to assess reductions in purchases of soda and energy drinks.

A spokesperson for the state’s department of Health and Human Services said that Nebraska would also provide technical assistance to help retailers make the transition.

In a statement on May 19, Mrs Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, called the approval “a historic step to Make America Healthy Again”.

Nebraska governor Jim Pillen also welcomed the step, saying, “There’s absolutely zero reason for taxpayers to be subsidising purchases of soda and energy drinks”.

The prohibition adds to the limits recipients face in using the programme.

Already, their benefits do not apply to hot foods, non-food items, alcohol and tobacco products. In recent months, Nebraska and other states, largely led by Republican governors, have sought waivers to extend those restrictions to unhealthy purchases.

A spokesperson for the Agriculture Department said on May 20 that the agency was reviewing and working with Iowa, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, West Virginia, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah on similar waivers.

A wave of approvals would come after decades of Agriculture Department denials under both Democratic and Republican administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first.

In letters explaining its rejections over more than a decade and in a 2007 policy paper, the Agriculture Department expressed concerns over the rationale, feasibility and effectiveness of such bans: Which, out of hundreds of thousands of products, should be banned? How would grocery stores, especially smaller shops not using advanced checkout systems, enforce such bans? And how would a state or city study the effect of these bans?

Asked about such bans during a congressional hearing in 2017, Mr Sonny Perdue, Mr Trump’s first agriculture secretary, questioned whether enforcing such restrictions was unduly interfering in people’s lives.

“On what level do we want to become a nanny state of directing how, and what, people feed their families?” he said then.

The second Trump administration has struck a different tone.

Mrs Rollins and Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, have written that their agencies had “a duty to fix” the obesity and chronic disease epidemics, encouraging steering “taxpayer dollars to go toward wholesome foods” using waivers.

Past bipartisan resistance to food stamp restrictions on unhealthy foods stems from the messy politics of the issue and the strange bedfellows it has united both in support and in opposition.

The American Heart Association said it “unequivocally” supported reducing the consumption of sugary drinks as a means to combat heart disease.

Right-leaning groups like the American Enterprise Institute and some conservative members of Congress have asserted that the bans would incentivise healthier purchases and return SNAP to its original purpose of helping poor people afford nutritious food.

Conversely, trade groups representing grocery stores and beverage companies argue that bans would be difficult and costly to enact at the cash register and unfairly single out soda as a cause for obesity.

Anti-hunger and anti-poverty organisations fear such bans may lead to broader cuts to food stamps and state that such restrictions are paternalistic.

Dr Thomas A. Farley, who was New York City’s health commissioner at the time it requested a waiver in 2011, said in an interview that he had been “hopeful” about approval given numerous meetings, discussions and phone calls with federal officials, only to be met with disappointment.

The reasons cited by the Agriculture Department in denying New York’s request in 2011 – the feasibility and large-scale nature of a citywide ban – felt like “a smoke screen”, Dr Farley said.

He added that he believed interests from farm states that produce corn, used in the high-fructose corn syrup in soda, were the real forces behind the denial.

Those forces are still in play today. But Dr Farley marvelled at how “the Trump movement has scrambled a lot in politics”.

After the American Beverage Association issued a rebuke of Arkansas’ waiver request in April, Mrs Rollins wrote on social media that the trade group’s leadership was “in direct conflict with this administration’s priorities for American health, well-being and taxpayer protection”.

Dr Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University and author of a book on soda bans, said that the current momentum reflected both opponents’ fears and supporters’ wishes.

“Some of this comes from the belief that taxpayers should not be subsidising unhealthy diets,” she said, noting that sodas were the natural start given the ingredients and low nutritional value.

“Some of it reflects condescending attitudes that poor people don’t know what’s good for them. And I’m guessing some of it is a cover for efforts to cut SNAP.” NYTIMES