Senate Democrats blocked an opportunity to vote this week on legislation allowing schools enrolled in the National School Lunch Program to serve whole milk.
On Thursday, Democrat Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee Debbie Stabenow refused to allow lawmakers a vote on the “Whole Milk For Healthy Kids Act,” which passed the House Wednesday. The legislation amends the Richard Russell National School Lunch Act to allow schools with federally subsidized lunch programs to offer whole milk alongside low-fat varieties.
“Access to healthy and nutritious whole milk should not be controversial,” said Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. “I was heartened to see the overwhelming bipartisan support for our bill last night in the House. With this momentum, we thought we had a real opportunity to come together and get a bipartisan win in the Senate to close out the year.”
It remains unclear why the Democrats blocked the measure. When reached for comment Friday, Stabenow’s office referred The Federalist to the senator’s brief remarks on the Senate floor Thursday night.
Stabenow cited incumbent dietary guidelines that broadly recommend a low-fat diet.
“Dairy is a very important part of a balanced meal, but one thing is clear,” Stabenow said, “and that is that school meal standards, currently based on dietary science, should continue to be based on dietary guidelines, not based on which individual food products that we support.”
“At this point in time, I do not believe it’s in the best interest to be able to move forward on this bill,”
