U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, issued a statement following a federal district court order that requires the Administration to provide full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments for November by tomorrow.
“The court could not be more clear: the administration needs to stop playing politics with hunger and provide families in need with full food assistance,” said Klobuchar. “The administration must take immediate action — as the court has required — to ensure families aren’t left worrying any longer about putting food on the table.”
Klobuchar, along with Senator Ben Ray Luján, Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research, and Senator Cory Booker led 43 other senators in urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to use all available funding mechanisms—including contingency funds and transfer authority—to ensure SNAP is funded for November. Both Klobuchar and Booker opposed USDA’s earlier decision not to use contingency funds for extending SNAP benefits into November.
The Administration had previously acknowledged in a now-removed lapse of funding plan that Congress intended SNAP operations to continue during a shutdown because multi-year contingency funds are available for both benefits and state administrative costs.
Additionally, Klobuchar and Luján led Senate Democrats in introducing legislation called the Keep SNAP and WIC Funded Act of 2025. This bill aims to prevent what they describe as illegal withholding of available funds for both SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Klobuchar is also a co-sponsor of Senator Josh Hawley’s bipartisan Keep SNAP Funded Act of 2025 which seeks to fully fund SNAP through any ongoing government shutdown.
