Congress milks food fight over Michelle Obama-era school lunch rules

Members of Congress are known for milking debates but not usually for debating milk. That will change again this week as the House marks its latest food fight by moving from the speaker saga to a school lunch showdown.

What might be considered a quotidian question inspired a spirited back-and-forth on the House floor on Tuesday as the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2023 readies for a vote in the lower chamber.

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“This bill is a win-win for children and producers,” Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-MN) said. “It gets kids the nutrients they need while giving schools more flexibility to meet the needs of their students, and it provides a larger market for dairy farmers to sell the delicious product they stand proudly behind.”

The bill would allow public schools to serve 2% milk and whole milk, which is 3.25% fat, both of which have been banned since 2012 due to concerns about saturated fat and rising obesity among young people. However, House Republicans and some Democrats are pointing to research that they say shows fat obtained from milk is more nutritious than previously believed.

Proponents of the bill also say that whole milk is more filling, so students who drink it are less likely to continue searching for calories elsewhere afterward, and that better-tasting 2% or whole milk is more likely to be consumed when some students may opt for juice or a soda over skim milk.

“Whole milk has been demonized as unhealthy, but it is full of calcium, potassium, vitamin D, and protein that growing kids need,” Fischbach said. “Since the misguided Obama-era regulations were put into place, that the Biden administration has chosen to continue, rather than seeing health improve, we have continued to see child health decline.”

Obesity rates have risen slightly since the regulations were put in place, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is one reason Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) introduced the bill in February. Following a protracted path through Congress, it could pass the House as soon as this week. The bill has some bipartisan support, with 28 Democratic co-sponsors in the House and Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) backing it in the Senate.

The White House has not said whether President Joe Biden will sign the bill if it passes, and the Department of Agriculture, which regulates school lunches, did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.

Despite the wholesome subject matter, the bill is not without its detractors.

Reforming school lunches in the name of nutrition was a big undertaking of former first lady Michelle Obama, and several Democrats have said the matter should be left up to experts while pointing to the irregularity of making piecemeal changes to school lunch policy.

“We owe it to our children, their health, and their futures to let the experts guide what we’re providing them to eat in schools and not allow politicians to make the decisions in what should be a science-based process,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) said, naming groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics who oppose the bill.

Democrats also decried the fact that milk was being debated at all amid the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but this isn’t even the first dairy-related congressional battle this year. The USDA is separately considering a ban on chocolate milk in elementary and middle schools, citing concerns about added sugars.

That led Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) to introduce the Milk is Indisputably Liked by Kids Act of 2023, or MILK Act, in June. That bill has not made it out of committee, but along with efforts to ban gas stoves, it added to fierce debate about the reach of government into people’s homes and kitchens.

The whole milk bill was debated in tandem with the Ensuring Accountability in Agency Rulemaking Act, which Republicans say will make the federal bureaucracy more accountable to voters. Democrats counter that the bill would slow down government operations and politicize the rulemaking process. Biden has promised to veto the rulemaking act.

On the House floor on Tuesday, debate over both bills revived pandemic-era arguments about the proper role of the government and government employees in setting policy.

“We should not be making it easier to serve unhealthier meals in schools,” Scanlon said. “This bill blatantly ignores the science.”

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Thompson, the bill’s primary sponsor, introduced it in each of the past three congressional sessions, but it went nowhere with Democrats in charge of the lower chamber. Now, it stands a more realistic chance of reaching Biden’s desk.

“We have seen students opt out of consuming milk altogether if they don’t have access to a variety that they enjoy,” Thompson said Tuesday. “Let’s face it: The only way to benefit from milk’s essential nutrients is to consume it.”