WASHINGTON, DC – Last night, Congressman Tom Tiffany’s (WI-07) bipartisan amendment to prevent the Biden administration from banning chocolate milk in schools passed by voice vote and will be included in H.R. 4368, the Agriculture Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2024.
Specifically, Tiffany’s amendment would ensure that none of the funds in the Agriculture Appropriations Act would fund a rule that will ban flavored milk in schools. In February, the Biden administration proposed a rule that would set new nutrition standards for school meals. If implemented, the new standards proposed could limit the amount of flavored milk, such as chocolate and strawberry, in high schools while children in elementary and middle schools would be restricted to a variety of unflavored milk.
Earlier this year, Rep. Tiffany introduced H.R. 3930, the Milk is Indisputably Liked by Kids (MILK) Act of 2023. The MILK Act would amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to ensure continued student access to flavored milk.
Cosponsors of Rep. Tiffany’s bipartisan chocolate milk amendment include: Reps. Andy Ogles (R-TN), Mary Miller (R-IL), Gabe Vasquez (D-NM), Scott Perry (R-PA), Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), and Glenn Grothman (R-WI).
Rep. Tiffany’s floor remarks can be found here and here as well as below.
“According to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, removing flavored milk from schools resulted in a 62-63% reduction in milk consumption by kids in kindergarten through fifth grade, as well as a 50% reduction in sixth through eighth grades. Milk is full of rich nutrients that support bone growth and development, and millions of children enjoy drinking it. We should not be funding rules that would limit our children's access to delicious and nutritious products like milk. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this bipartisan amendment and I reserve.”
“When you have a federal government that believes that they need to regulate the milk that is served in our kids’ schools across America, you have a federal government that is out of control. When you have a federal government that has become a borderless country; when our federal government has become perhaps the largest human trafficking operation in the history of the world; when you have a federal government that will not take us back to energy independence, where gasoline is now back up to $4 a gallon where I live in northern Wisconsin; when you have a federal government that has fueled inflation, like we haven't seen for 40 years, what in the world are they doing? What in the world are they doing trying to regulate what milk is served in our kids’ schools?”
“Finally, I would just like to say that I come from America's Dairyland, and you are damn right I'm going to fight for milk in our kids’ schools.”
Last Update: Sep 27, 2023 3:11 pm CDT
