The USDA recently approved Nebraska’s waiver to restrict soda and energy drinks purchased with SNAP benefits. These restrictions do not make people healthier, but do make people hungrier, while also making SNAP recipients second class citizens when buying groceries. Food and the dignity of making our own choices at the store should be accessible to EVERYONE!
On Tuesday, July 8 at 10 am CT, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services will be hosting a public hearing on these food restriction regulations (Title 475, Chapter 1 – see amber highlights after clicking “View Draft”). The public is able to comment on the proposed regulations by email (dhhs.regulations@nebraska.gov) through the day of the hearing, or during the hearing in person.
SNAP Food Restrictions Hearing: July 8, 10 am CT
Nebraska State Office Building
Lower Level Meadowlark Conference Room
301 Centennial Mall South
Lincoln, NE
Find Appleseed’s comment opposing these regulations below:
RE: Proposed Changes to Title 475, Chapter 1 of the Nebraska Administrative Code – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Nebraska Appleseed is strongly opposed to the proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program General Provisions at 475 NAC 1-002.22. We oppose any regulatory proposal that would undermine the effectiveness of the SNAP program in meeting the needs of Nebraskans. This proposal does just that.
These regulations attempt to implement the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) restriction waiver the state of Nebraska sought in mid-April and that was approved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on May 19th of this year. The waiver allows the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to operate a novel demonstration project to amend the statutory definition of food for purchase by SNAP recipients from “any food or food product for home consumption” to exclude soda, “soft drinks,” and energy drinks. While the stated purpose of the waiver is to promote better health outcomes for SNAP households, there are compelling reasons to believe it will have the opposite effect.
Previous attempts to restrict purchasing autonomy in SNAP have consistently demonstrated how burdensome and complicated such restrictions can be.(1) For example, when food restrictions were proposed in the original iteration of the 1964 Food Stamp Act, the Senate Agriculture Committee rejected the idea due to the significant administrative burden it would impose. About a decade later, the 1977 Farm Bill recognized that the same restrictions would not address the root causes of food insecurity and would only complicate the program.(2) More recently, the focus has shifted from harmful restrictions to helpful incentives, such as the produce incentives built into the 2008 Farm Bill. Providing incentives to allow SNAP households more access to healthy food does a demonstrably better job of achieving the purported goals of the SNAP restriction waiver without imposing a massive administrative burden and, most importantly, without degrading the dignity and autonomy of people on SNAP.
While the USDA has already approved the SNAP restriction waiver in Nebraska, the USDA itself has evaluated food restrictions and concluded that proposals seeking to limit the food choices of SNAP participants are plagued by “serious problems with their rationale, feasibility, and potential effectiveness.(3) The reasons for coming to this conclusion are many, and include that there are no clear standards for defining foods as good or bad, or healthy or unhealthy, that implementation of food restrictions increase program complexity and cost, that when in place, restrictions may be ineffective in changing the purchasing habits of participants, and that no evidence exists to support the claim that participation in SNAP contributes to poor diets or obesity rates.
At the heart of our opposition to these proposed rules is our concern that implementing the SNAP restriction waiver will lead to fewer food retailers accepting SNAP, thereby causing a significant number of Nebraskan families — including those with children, veterans, people with disabilities, and the elderly — to face even greater barriers when trying to put food on the table. We know that implementing this waiver will require retailers to update their systems and spend a significant amount of time coordinating with DHHS to ensure they are complying with the new mandate. On the agency side, we know that administering this restriction waiver requires training staff, updating materials, and communicating all of these changes to retailers, all while grappling with outdated systems and technology and an ever-tightening agency budget. We are concerned that many retailers, particularly small businesses in rural Nebraska, will choose to stop accepting SNAP altogether rather than taking on the burden of implementing these restrictions. We are also concerned that by expending state SNAP resources to administer these restrictions, DHHS will fall even farther behind in meeting its actual obligations under federal laws governing SNAP, including timely and accurate processing of SNAP applications.
SNAP is a vital and temporary lifeline for thousands of Nebraskans. Over 150,000 of us count on SNAP to help put food on the table at a time when costs are high and family budgets are tight. These proposed rules seek to implement a SNAP restriction waiver that harms the dignity and autonomy of Nebraskans, threatens to exacerbate food access issues across the state, and ignores the overwhelming evidence that underscores how these restrictions do not make people healthier, but do make people hungrier.
For the foregoing reasons, we urge the agency to withdraw these proposed regulations.
- SNAP Choice is the Right Choice – Preventing Harmful SNAP Restrictions, Food Research and Action Center, Gina Plata-Nino, February 10, 2025
- Id.
- Implications of Restricting the Use of Food Stamp Benefits – Summary, United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, March 1, 2007.