Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) at a Meetig on Maine Vet Homelessness at Hanaford Hall, USM, Portland Last Weej, For More information on the Meeting Please Visit Post Herein Dated August 4, 2023.

Amid continued Republican threats to take food away from hungry Americans by weakening the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s most effective anti-hunger program, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and her fellow Democratic House Agirculture Committee members are calling on Speaker Kevin McCarthy to respect the Farm Bill process and leave partisan politics out of negotiatig programs that countless American farmers and families depend on.

“You have seen what happens when leadership gets involved in dictating the details of the farm bill, particularly when the issue involved is SNAP, the safety net for America’s working poor and elderly.  The failures of the 2014 and 2018 House versions of the farm bill their first time up for consideration caused a great deal of anxiety in rural America.  That should be enough of a reminder to you that playing partisan SNAP politics does nothing to address the needs of our farm and ranch families who depend on the other components of the farm bill, whether its the farm safety net, conservation, trade or other titles,” said the lawmakers in part in the letter to the Speaker.

In Pingree’s district 23,000 households depend on SNAP benefits each month while statewide, 145,000 Mainers, including more than 46,000 children, get help from SNAP to put food on their tables.

During a House Agriculture Committee meeting hearing in June, Pingree vehemently celebrated essential programs like the SNAP under threat from House Republicans in what may be the Committee’s only hearing on Nutrition, the fourth Title of the farm bill.