Trump Officials Ask Supreme Court to Halt Order to Fund Food Aid

The Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court to intervene on an emergency basis Friday night to block the transfer of $4 billion in food-aid funds for needy Americans.

The filing came as a federal appeals court declined for now to say the US could keep making only partial payments during the government shutdown while the administration challenges a Rhode Island judge’s directive to fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, at 100%.

The Supreme Court filing went to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency requests from the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson, one of the court’s liberals, could act on her own or refer the matter to the full nine-member court. The request seeks high court action by 9:30 p.m. Washington time Friday.

The three-judge 1st Circuit panel said it is still considering the administration’s request. The judges said in their brief order that the government didn’t deny that it can access separate funds earmarked for child nutrition programs which the groups that filed the suit say has more than enough cash on hand.

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

US District Judge John McConnell in Providence rejected that argument Thursday and ordered the government 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 by Friday, 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 committed earlier this week 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 responded to the request with a separate filing on Friday, arguing the government was incorrectly claiming that tapping funds from child nutrition programs would put those programs at risk.

“The administration’s callous use of hunger as a political tool is reprehensible and must end,” Diane Yentel, president and chief executive officer of the National Council of Nonprofits, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Efforts by the administration to delay or reduce SNAP benefits harms both the American people and nonprofit community food banks doing all they can to serve their neighbors in need.”

To contact the reporters on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net;
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth

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