The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TO EXTEND A NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM TO AMERICAN SAMOA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E448 on Feb. 27, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TO EXTEND A NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM TO AMERICAN SAMOA
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HON. ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA
of american samoa
in the house of representatives
Monday, February 27, 1995
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill to provide permanent funding for a nutrition program in American Samoa.
The American Samoa Nutrition Assistance Program currently in existence is funded on an annual basis out of discretionary funds from the Department of Agriculture. The national Food Stamp Program is not available in American Samoa, and the program in Samoa serves as a modified Food Stamp Program in that only the blind, severely disabled, and poor elderly are eligible for benefits. Benefits are also limited in that they vary between $50 and $125 per month, depending on the income of and the assets owned by the recipient.
Unfortunately, the method of annual appropriations used for American Samoa's Nutrition Assistance Program is unsatisfactory in that the level of funding, or perhaps more appropriately the existence of any funding, is subject to annual appropriations. I can see no reason why funding for the Food Stamp programs for the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and for all but one of the U.S. Territories should come from one source, and the funding for American Samoa's program should come from a different source.
Mr. Speaker, I believe American Samoa's nutrition assistance program is a model to be followed by other U.S. jurisdictions in that no benefits are available for the able-bodied. As I stated earlier, the only recipients are the poor blind, severely disabled, and the elderly. The cost of the program for fiscal year 1995 is $5.5 million, a cost which could easily be absorbed within the multi-billion dollar contingency fund of the national program, and I urge my colleagues to join me in addressing this variance in national policy and support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I submit the bill to be printed in the Record, as follows:
H.R. --
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. EXTENSION OF NUTRITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM TO
AMERICAN SAMOA.
The first sentence of section 601(c) of Public Law 96-597
(48 U.S.C. 1469d(c)) is amended by inserting before the period at the end the following: ``, and the Secretary of Agriculture shall extend a nutrition assistance program conducted under the Food Stamp Act of 1977 (7 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) to American Samoa''.
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