US Loses Appeal Ruling to Limit Food Aid Funding for Now (1)

A US appeals court refused to pause a judge’s order requiring the Trump administration to fully fund November food-aid benefits to 42 million eligible Americans during the government shutdown.

A panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals late Sunday denied the administration’s request to continue making only partial payments during the shutdown, while it challenges a lower court judge’s directive to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, at 100%.

Signs of a potential resolution to the record-breaking government shutdown emerged over the weekend as a group of moderate Senate Democrats broke with their party leaders to support a deal. The fight over paying SNAP benefits has emerged as a major flash point in the weeks-long standoff.

On Monday, the Supreme Court asked the administration to let it know by 11 a.m. Washington time if it plans to continue to seek a pause of the lower court order. If so, the government must file additional briefing by 4 p.m., with the groups that filed the suit responding by 8 a.m. Tuesday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said in a one-page order.

Separately, a federal judge in Boston in a related lawsuit issued an order Monday pausing a Nov. 8 Trump administration memo that told states to “immediately undo” any action taken to fully fund November food-aid benefits or face potential financial penalties. The judge set a hearing on the matter for 3:30 p.m.

The Department of Agriculture and other US agencies have argued that the government doesn’t have enough money to cover the entire cost of SNAP benefits for November amid a federal funding lapse.

The appeals court panel said in its order on Sunday that the court does “not take lightly the government’s concern that money used to fund November SNAP payments will be unavailable for other important nutrition assistance programs.”

“But we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in determining that the overwhelming evidence of widespread harm that a stay would cause right now, by leaving tens of millions of Americans without food as winter approaches, outweighed the potential monetary harm to the government,” Judge Julie Rikelman wrote in the appeals court’s order.

Read More: Senate Advances Plan to End Shutdown After Some Democrats Agree

US District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island on Thursday ordered the administration to tap alternative reserve funds to send states the $8.5 billion to $9 billion needed this month for SNAP as the budget impasse in Congress drags on.

The judge said that President Donald Trump’s administration must make all of the funds available to states, finding that the government had failed to comply with his earlier order and that people will go hungry if the funds are not made available.

The administration had committed Tuesday to covering 65% of benefits this month after losing an earlier round in court, while warning that the recalculation process was likely to cause weeks or even months of delays. Previously, the administration had pledged to cover only 50% of the payments.

“This is a crisis, to be sure, but it is a crisis occasioned by congressional failure, and that can only be solved by congressional action,” the government said in its emergency request for the appeals court to stay McConnell’s order.

The Rhode Island State Council of Churches and other groups that filed the lawsuit argued in response that the government was incorrectly claiming that tapping funds from child nutrition programs would put those programs at risk.

Read More: Supreme Court Lets Trump Officials Limit Food Aid for Now

On the appeals court, Rikelman was appointed by former President Joe Biden, as was a second judge on the panel, Gustavo Gelpi. The third panelist, Chief Judge David Barron, was appointed by Barack Obama.

Sunday’s ruling comes after the Trump administration persuaded a US Supreme Court justice Friday to pause McConnell’s order requiring full SNAP funding by that night.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sent the case back to the 1st Circuit, ordering that a ruling by the appeals court remain on hold for 48 hours. That would give the administration a chance to return to the Supreme Court.

(Updates with additional Supreme Court briefing and a court order pausing a government memo telling states not to make full payments.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net;
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ben Bain at bbain2@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Anthony Aarons

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