Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at the Joint Oversight Hearing on Food Distribution in Tribal and Elderly Communities

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee's joint oversight hearing on the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP):

Thank you, Chairman Harris and Ranking Member Bishop, Chairman Cole, Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Scott, and Subcommittee Chairman Finstad, and Ranking Member Hayes, for holding this important joint hearing.

I want to begin by thanking our distinguished tribal witnesses for joining us today. Welcome to the House of Representatives! You are our first-hand eyewitnesses, both for the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) and for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP).

And thank you to our witnesses from the Administration, Secretary Vilsack, Deputy Undersecretary Long and Administrator Sommers, for appearing today to help us understand how U.S.D.A. is working to fix the issues with food deliveries to tribal communities and to low-income seniors, and how the Department is going to ensure this kind of disruption does not happen again.

Combined, FDPIR and CSFP serve over 770,000 Americans. Disruptions to food deliveries facilitated by these programs began earlier this year, causing food insecurity for low-income Americans – in some cases, food distribution centers received none of their allotted food support. It is incomprehensible how deliveries were interrupted for so long because of the use of a single contractor, and we need to understand what went wrong and how we can alleviate the struggling that is occurring while we speak. It must be among our government’s highest priorities that the most vulnerable communities among us do not suffer from hunger, but this disruption to food deliveries has risked exactly that. It is unacceptable that seniors and tribal communities would go without this assistance, for any length of time.

However, I am pleased and impressed by the actions taken by Secretary Vilsack since he was made aware of the issue in early August, and he and his team deserve credit for finding and utilizing creative solutions.

The Department has engaged FEMA and the Defense Logistics Agency, reflecting the urgency of mitigating this interruption, employing our federal government’s best experts at sourcing and moving goods to ensure that these communities receive the deliveries they need expediently.

The Department has taken many steps, including bringing in an emergency contractor and providing direct aid for tribal communities and CSFP agencies to source food assistance directly to help bridge the gap during the delivery interruptions.

I underscore, however, that this disruption to badly needed food assistance really is unacceptable, and we must learn, and the Department must explain, how exactly this occurred.

Those who have oversight in this area ought to take a look at what they may have missed in regard to this effort as well.

What we need to do is to address this issue in a bipartisan way.

Partisan games over government funding cannot stand in the way of properly funding all of our nutrition programs.

I yield back.