‘People have gone without for too long,’ the judge said.
The Trump administration must pay the approximately $9 billion to fully fund food stamps for November, a federal judge ruled on Nov. 6.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must pay states the money by Nov. 7 to distribute to the approximately 42 million Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants, according to an oral order from Judge John McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
“People have gone without for too long. Not making payments to them for even another day is simply unacceptable,” McConnell said.
USDA officials had declined to fund SNAP amid the government shutdown, arguing that they could not use contingency money or revenue from tariffs. McConnell, in response to a lawsuit, recently said that the administration could either partially fund November benefits with contingency money or fully fund benefits for the month with that money and the tariff revenue.
“If the Government does want to use its discretion to use funds available to make a full payment of SNAP benefits for November 6, then it must expeditiously resolve the administrative and clerical burdens it described in its papers … but under no circumstances shall the partial payments be made later than Wednesday, November 5,” McConnell wrote in a temporary restraining order on Nov. 1.
The government chose to partially fund the November benefits using the contingency fund, which it said contained $4.6 billion. The government stated that it would not use the tariff revenue, or Section 32 funds, because if it were to, then child nutrition programs funded by that revenue might eventually run out of money.
The Rhode Island State Council of Churches and other plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the order. They said that reasons given by the government for not fully funding the benefits were arbitrary and capricious, in violation of federal law.
They also said the government failed to abide by McConnell’s requirement that partial payments be made by Nov. 5.
“Tapping into those funds now to fully fund November SNAP benefits will not take funding away from those child nutrition programs unless the government shutdown lasts until next June,” Kristin Bateman, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told the judge during the hearing.
“There’s no more time to wait.”
Tyler Becker, a government attorney, said that the government complied with the order because it distributed the contingency money to states by the deadline. SNAP is a joint federal-state program.
“The money is available to states,” he said.
“This is a state problem.”
