The United States Department of Agriculture on Saturday told states “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November.” This comes after the Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily block a court order requiring full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding.
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In the Saturday memo, Patrick A. Penn, Deputy Undersecretary for the USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said states must not transmit full benefit issuance files to EBT processors, but instead, just process the partial issuance files. These reflect a 35% reduction of the maximum allotments detailed in previous guidance, Penn said.
Legal battles over SNAP have led to confusion and uncertainty for the 42 million people who rely on it.
States including Hawaii, Oregon, Wisconsin, California, Kansas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington had already been issuing full SNAP benefits for the month after a federal judge ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to fully fund the program, The Associated Press reported.
That ruling came from a lawsuit filed by several nonprofits after the Department of Agriculture said it would suspend benefits as of Nov. 1 amid the government shutdown.
States in a separate lawsuit wrote in a filing to a Massachusetts judge Saturday that “[officials have] not sent … any centralized or coherent guidance regarding how to navigate these unprecedented circumstances and what steps USDA will take to resolve the chaos created by its actions,” according to Politico.
Congress failed to pass a funding bill by an Oct. 1 deadline, keeping the government shutdown in place. The sticking point is health care — Democrats say Republican-led funding legislation lets Affordable Care Act subsidies expire, which could jack up insurance prices for many Americans. Republicans, meanwhile, say they want a bill with no extra provisions.
