Food Distribution Programs: Improving Access and Parity

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Food and Nutrition Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 247, 250, 251, 253, and 254</CFR> <DEPDOC>[FNS-2023-0026]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0584-AE92</RIN> <SUBJECT>Food Distribution Programs: Improving Access and Parity</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This final rule considers public comments submitted in response to the proposed rule revising the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and USDA Foods disaster response regulations. This final rule makes access and parity improvements in USDA's food distribution programs to support access for eligible populations and streamline requirements for program operators. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> This rule is effective December 30, 2024. <E T="03">Implementation dates:</E> See section 2 of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . This rulemaking consists of multiple provisions. Implementation for each provision is referenced in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this final rule and detailed in the section-by-section analysis. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Gregory Walton, Program Analyst, Food Distribution Policy Branch, Supplemental Nutrition and Safety Programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service, 1320 Braddock Place, 3rd Floor, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 at 703-305-2746 or <E T="03">Gregory.Walton@usda.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Section 1. Background and Discussion of the Final Rule</HD> The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (the Department or USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) works to increase food security and reduce hunger through the administration of 16 Federal nutrition assistance programs. Through the provision of food and administrative funding, USDA FNS food distribution programs assist the emergency feeding network—made up of thousands of food banks, food pantries, Tribal governments, and other community partners—in feeding those in need. In a proposed rule published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 14, 2023 (88 FR 54908) (described hereafter as “the proposed rule”), FNS proposed to amend food distribution regulations at 7 CFR parts 247, 250, 251, 253, and 254 to make access and parity improvements within the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and USDA Foods disaster response. Based on comments received in response to the proposed rule, USDA is finalizing regulatory changes with the following overall aims: • Increasing access to food distribution programs so eligible individuals can more easily receive the nutrition resources they need, and program operators can more easily provide those resources; • Increasing parity between FDPIR and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); • Modernizing program operations by updating some outdated terminology and processes; • Updating regulations to be consistent with current program operations and building in flexibility for future changes; and • Incorporating lessons learned from implementing these critical programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Section II. Public Comments and USDA Response</HD> During the 60-day comment period on the proposed rule (August 14—October 13, 2023), USDA received a total of 155 comments. The Department appreciates the comments provided and carefully considered these in the development of this final rule. All comments were considered without regard to whether they were provided by a single commenter or repeated by many. Importance was given to the substance or content of the comment, rather than the number of times a comment was submitted. Of the 155 comments, 11 were duplicate or non-germane submissions, resulting in 144 relevant comments. All comments are posted online at ( <E T="03">see docket FNS-2023-0026, Food Distribution Programs: Improving Access and Parity</E> ). Relevant comments were submitted by State and local agencies, Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs), advocacy organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and other interested parties, including food banks, professional and trade associations, the research community, and individual commenters and members of the public. Comments that did not refer to the changes in the proposed rule were considered outside of scope and are not addressed as part of this final rule. Overall, five comments fully supported the proposed rule generally and one comment opposed it. The remaining comments were either mixed or only referenced and supported specific provisions. Additional detail on the comments received for provisions in the proposed rule are below. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Commodity Supplemental Food Program</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">I. Technical Updates to the Entire Part 247</HD> This final rule codifies technical updates to 7 CFR part 247 as proposed. The Department is replacing the term “elderly” with “participants” because, under the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Pub. L. 113-79), as of February 2020, CSFP is limited to participation by senior adults aged 60 years and above. In § 247.2, the Department is removing reference to women, infants, and children receiving CSFP benefits as they are no longer a part of the program. Additionally, the Department is replacing the outdated term “commodities” with “USDA Foods” to better reflect current terminology and align with the newly proposed definition of USDA Foods in 7 CFR 247.1 (See II. Updates to Definitions). This technical update does not change any current requirements and is simply a change in terminology. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Public Comments and USDA Response</HD> The Department received 21 comments that were all supportive of the technical updates to 7 CFR part 247. Commenters supporting the changes included: 4 State agencies, 7 advocacy groups, 5 program operators, and 5 individuals. One commenter discussed that updating the term “elderly” to “participants” would align with the use of person-centered language. Commenters in support of updating the term “commodities” to “USDA Foods” discussed how the technical updates will reduce confusion at the local agency level when identifying foods procured through USDA. One State agency commenter requested clarification or technical guidance on which foods are solely eligible for CSFP versus other USDA Foods programs. The commenter stated that all of the foods in each program would be considered USDA Foods after this update is finalized. Per § 250.12(b), distributing agencies must ensure that USDA Foods at all storage facilities (including subdistributing agencies) are stored in a manner that permits them to be distinguished from other foods, and must ensure that a separate inventory record of USDA Foods is maintained. Thus, State agencies must store USDA Foods provided for CSFP separately from USDA Foods provided for any other program ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> TEFAP) and must use those foods solely for the operation of CSFP. <HD SOURCE="HD3">II. Updates to Definitions (§ 247.1)</HD> This final rule codifies the updated definitions in § 247.1 as proposed. The Department is adding a new definition for the term “USDA Foods” to replace the outdated definition of “commodities” and align 7 CFR part 247 with current terminology. The Department is deleting the definition of “elderly persons” since § 247.9(a) specifies CSFP-eligible individuals must be at least 60 years of age and because the term “elderly persons” is being replaced throughout the part. Finally, the Department is updating the definition of “proxy” to exclude a “participant's adult parent” because children are no longer eligible to participate in CSFP under the Agricultural Act of 2014 (Pub. L. 113-79). <HD SOURCE="HD3">Public Comments and USDA Response</HD> The Department received 21 comments that were all supportive of updating the definitions in § 247.1. Commenters supporting the change included: 4 State agencies, 7 advocacy groups, 5 program operators, and 5 individuals. The update to the definitions in § 247.1 reflects the technical updates discussed above (See I. Technical Updates to the Entire Part 247). Commenters noted these updates reflect current practices in the program and the change to the term “USDA Foods” provides clarity and consistency with other USDA programs while potentially reducing confusion at the local agency level when identifying USDA Foods. The Department concurs with commenters who stated that the proposed changes to § 247.1 will update the program to use current terminology and provide clarity and consistency with other USDA food distribution programs. One commenter suggested expanding the definition of “proxy” to allow for proxies during certification and remove an access barrier to the program. The Department is not expanding the definition of “proxy” for certification periods as State agencies may already permit the use of proxies during certification and recertification. <HD SOURCE="HD3">III. Public Posting of Availability of USDA Foods (§ 247.5)</HD> This final rule codifies the proposed provision at § 247.5(b)(16) with modification to require that State agencies make available a list of CSFP local agencies, excluding agencies operating under an agreement with a local agency, on a publicly available internet web page. The State agency must post the name, address, and telephone number for each local agency. The list must be updated, at a minimum, on an annual basis. This is a revision from the propose ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 226k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━