The First Lady’s efforts to defend healthy school lunch standards fell short Thursday as the House Appropriations Committee voted 29-22 in favor of a measure included in a bill to fund the USDA to allow some school districts to opt out of the standards.
USA Today (5/30, Schouten) notes that the provision passed “despite high-profile opposition from first lady Michelle Obama,” who championed the new standards “as part of her initiative to promote healthy eating and exercise.” USA Today notes that White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that “appropriators had decided to replace ‘the judgment of doctors and nutritionists with the opinions of politicians regarding what is healthy for our kids.’”
McClatchy (5/30, Wise, Subscription Publication) reports that the First Lady defended the “new standards for healthy school lunches,” with a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week in which she “criticized Republicans for promoting legislation that would exempt schools from the standards.” McClatchy notes that the First Lady “rarely wades into Capitol Hill battles,” but is “taking a high-profile role in this one.”
The Hill (5/29, Sink) reported that the First Lady “aggressively sought to rally votes against the waiver,” noting that earlier this week, she “told a group of school nutritionists at the White House that the GOP-led effort to allow schools to opt out of nutrition standards was ‘unacceptable.’”
The Washington Post (5/30, Hamburger) calls the vote “a rebuke of sorts to the first lady, who has made curbing child obesity a priority and delivered a series of public pronouncements in recent days decrying the opt-out proposal as a full embrace of junk food.” The Post adds that the First Lady “has emerged as a key factor in the schism stemming from the new standards,” as some school officials “have complained about the White House seeking to impose costly food standards on districts that don’t want them.”
Similarly, the AP (5/30, Jalonick) notes that some “school nutrition directors have lobbied for a break, saying the rules have proved to be costly and restrictive.” They say that “limits on sodium and requirements for more whole grains are particularly challenging, while some school officials say kids are throwing away fruits and vegetables that are required.”
TIME (5/30, Newton-Small) reported that House Republicans were “unimpressed” by the First Lady’s opposition to the changes, which they see as “fairly moderate, certainly not as dramatic as what the School Nutrition Association had advocated, according to a GOP aide close to the process, who noted that the bill was passed out of subcommittee unanimously.”
Politico (5/29, Evich, Tomson) reported that the House move “sets up what promises to be a contentious conference between the House and Senate bills, although the measures have yet to clear either chamber,” and noted that House Republicans “are looking forward to the coming battle with the Senate.” Politico added that Democrats “are digging in their heels, buoyed by uncharacteristically public political support from first lady and the fact that the Senate Appropriations Committee did not include the waiver in the recent approval its agriculture spending bill.”
The New York Times (5/30, A15, Nixon, Subscription Publication) reports that while Agriculture subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt defended the provision, ranking Democrat Sam Farr of California called it “a poison pill that would undermine congressional efforts to provide children with nutritious foods.”
Opinion Pages Divided Over First Lady’s Efforts. Opinion pages this morning are divided over the House-passed measure and the First Lady’s efforts to stop it. For example, in an op-ed for USA Today (5/30), Agriculture subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt writes that the White House’s portrayal of the bill as a “roll back [of] all nutrition standards within the National School Lunch Program,” is “simply not true.” The bill, he writes, provides “a temporary, one-year waiver only for school districts that can prove a six-month operating loss.” Aderholt argues that the new rules “should not drive school lunch programs underwater,” and adds that the “simple provision merely throws these local schools a lifeline.”
An editorial accompanying Aderholt’s op-ed in USA Today (5/30) blasts the House plan, saying it would be “a major, and unnecessary, step backward in the effort to make school lunches healthier,” and arguing that “legitimate problems should be fixable with minor adjustments and some flexibility from the US Department of Agriculture” and without congressional involvement.
A Baltimore Sun (5/30) editorial praises the First Lady’s efforts, noting that her “observation that it’s “unacceptable” that certain lawmakers are playing politics with ‘our children’s health’ is right on point.” The Sun argues that school districts should not be permitted to “opt out of nutritional standards just because they’re inconvenient any more then we’d expect them to stop teaching algebra because it’s hard.”
Other editorials are critical of the First Lady’s efforts. For example, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal (5/30, A14, Subscription Publication) cites the efforts of the First Lady and the Administration to oppose the changes as an example of the Administration’s penchant for misrepresenting the views of its critics. In this case, the Journal notes, the Administration attempted to portray Republicans as supporting childhood obesity.
An editorial in the Washington Times (5/30) blasts the standards as “one-size-fits-all rules” that are “frustrating school administrators.” The Times contends that while the First Lady’s intentions are good, her “crusade is a good example of the folly of a centralized bureaucracy that proposes to solve the world’s problems from a cubicle at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
