U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered the Trump administration to pay full SNAP benefits by Friday.
The Trump administration raced to an appeals court to block a federal judge’s order directing the Agriculture Department to use emergency funding to pay full food stamp benefits for November.
The move comes after U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered USDA to drain a contingency account for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and tap unused tariff money to pay full benefits by Friday. Justice Department lawyers argued in an emergency stay request that the judge’s decision was misguided and that it is likely to be overturned on appeal at the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.
Nearly 42 million low-income Americans rely on the SNAP program, which ran out of funds Nov. 1, prompting states and nonprofits to scramble to replace federal aid as the government shutdown reaches day 38.
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the plaintiffs — nonprofits and cities — to respond to the government’s motion by noon Friday.
DOJ attorneys claimed in their filing that McConnell’s order “has thrust the Judiciary into the ongoing shutdown negotiations and may well have the effect of extending the lapse in appropriations, exacerbating the problem that the court was misguidedly trying to mitigate.”
The Trump administration agreed to tap the contingency fund earlier this week after two separate court orders, but contends that it cannot use money from a different account for the SNAP program. Partial benefits, as the administration advised states to release earlier this week, are more complicated to administer and are expected to take weeks to flow to recipients.
Administration officials have argued that tapping an account known as Section 32, which funds child nutrition programs and other USDA initiatives, strays from congressional intent and could cause a budget shortfall for programs like school meals.
McConnell said in his oral order Thursday that the administration’s interpretation of Congress’s purpose for the account was erroneous, noting that officials have previously tapped Section 32 funds to keep running the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC. He added that Congress has time to address concerns about potential shortfalls in the school meals program.
Justice Department attorneys maintained in the government’s appeal Friday that only Congress can fix SNAP’s budget shortfall.
“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,” they wrote in the filing. “There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions.”
They also argued that it can’t be assumed that Congress would replenish a drained Section 32 account.
“That is pure speculation,” they wrote, adding, “agencies cannot spend money based on wishful thinking.”