Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined 22 other state attorneys general in sending a letter on Friday to Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins pressing for answers on the lapse in funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as SNAP, coming at the end of the month.
The state’s Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday morning that they had been instructed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pause benefits for the month of November due to the ongoing federal shutdown.
The letter “request[s] further clarification and information from USDA about (1) how it determined this action was necessary, and (2) its “contingency plan” to ensure benefits are issued to the maximum extent possible during the federal government shutdown.”
Specifically, it questions the legal basis of the benefits pause, as well as the implications of it — especially the federal government’s plan not to use contingency funds or to reallocate other funding sources to partially subsidize SNAP for November.
“The Trump Administration should use all available funds to ensure SNAP benefits are not paused and be upfront about how they plan to move forward so Americans continue receiving the support they need during this time of uncertainty,” Nessel said in a press release from her office.
A similar letter was also sent Friday to Rollins by all six of Michigan’s Democrats in Congress; Reps. Debbie Dingell of Ann Arbor, Kristen McDonald Rivet of Bay City, Hillary Scholten of Grand Rapids, Haley Stevens of Birmingham, and Shri Thander and Rashida Tlaib, both from Detroit.
The letter from the AGs cited a $6 billion appropriation of emergency funds for SNAP funding — by most estimates, around two-thirds of what would be required to fully fund the program for November — and argues “USDA should surely use those funds to continue providing SNAP benefits, rather than effectively suspending all SNAP benefits by summarily ordering States to ‘hold’ already calculated November allotments.”
It also questioned the legality of the way that the department went about pausing the benefits, in that they did not cite their reasons for the pause beyond the federal shutdown — and whether it is a “cancellation” or a “suspension” of the November benefits, an important distinction under the law.
“USDA does have some authority to reduce SNAP benefits, or even suspend or cancel them under certain circumstances,” the release from Nessel’s office said. “However, USDA’s October 10 letter does not indicate that any of the legal requirements to do so have been met.”
“In particular, rather than reducing November allotments consistent with statutory criteria, and requiring States to recalculate their files accordingly, USDA directed States to simply ignore the already-calculated November files altogether and effectively suspend SNAP benefits indefinitely,” the letter added.
The attorneys general also sent Rollins and the department a series of questions about the availability of contingency funds and whether or not the department intended to use them. However, the Department of Agriculture has said in a memo released Friday that they cannot legally use these contingency funds while the government is not funded — a rollback of previous statements from the department.
Responses to those questions from Rollins were requested by the end of the day on Monday.
This story was updated with details on Michigan’s congressional Democrats also sending a letter.
This story was originally published by Michigan Advance. Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.
