Kilili recognized nationally for work on food security

Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan has been recognized for his work on legislation that helps people have enough to eat. Food Policy Action, an organization of national food policy leaders, awarded Sablan with a perfect 100 percent on its scorecard for the 113th Congress. Only 53 House Members received the top score.

The National Food Policy Scorecard is intended to give voters the information they need to “vote with their forks” and elect more food policy leaders across the country. Food Policy Action’s board of directors includes Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group; Tom Colicchio, head judge of Top Chef; Gary Hirshberg, co-founder and chairman of Stonyfield Farm; and Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States.

Increasing food security for Northern Marianas families has been a focus on Sablan’s work in Congress. He won an additional $32.5 million for food assistance for the Northern Marianas in Public Law 113-79, signed by the President on Feb. 7, 2014.

Sablan was able to get the increase even though the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives cut funding for food assistance by $9 billion nationwide in the new law. Only the Northern Marianas was singled out for an increase.

Sablan also achieved a longstanding goal of getting the Department of Agriculture to recognize the higher cost of food for families on Rota, Tinian, and the Northern Islands. In April, the department announced that it would allow benefits for Rota and the Northern Islands to go up 62 percent. Benefits for Tinian were increased 28 percent.

For a family of four on Rota or one of the Northern Islands, benefits went from $444 per month to $719, beginning in May. On Tinian benefits for a family of four increased to $568. The department is currently reviewing a proposal for an increase for Saipan families.

P.L. 113-79 puts NMI on path to SNAP

Section 4013 of Public Law 113-79 creates a special “Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Pilot Program,” a five-year pathway for the Northern Marianas to be included in the national food stamp program, SNAP. The pilot program provides $13.5 million to the Commonwealth to raise benefits closer to the national level beginning next October. Another $8.5 million is also available for each of the following two fiscal years.

Sablan was able to achieve this goal by moving to the House Agriculture Committee in 2011. The Committee was beginning its work on reauthorization of the “farm bill,” which includes the food stamp program and which occurs every five years. Sablan joined the Committee’s Subcommittee on Nutrition, which has jurisdiction over SNAP and he made the appeal for increased benefits for families in need in the Marianas at numerous Subcommittee hearings.

The Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Republican Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, visited the Northern Marianas this August and commented on the difficulties of passing the farm bill. Some members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, were not as focused as they should have been, Lucas told local reporters. “But your member, Congressman Sablan, was very supportive from the very first step in the farm bill.

“He showed a willingness to want to know and work on issues that are not only important to the Commonwealth but also important in passing the overall farm bill, important to meeting the needs of everyone in this great country.”

Sablan’s dedication and willingness to work hard paid off for the Marianas, when Lucas agreed to include the food stamp increase for the Northern Marianas in the larger farm bill.

Sablan has been criticized by some in the Northern Marianas who say that SNAP will be too expensive for the Commonwealth government to administer. But a study by former Commonwealth Finance Secretary Bob Schrack, commissioned by Sablan, concluded that SNAP would encourage economic growth and, actually, raise net revenues for the Commonwealth government.

“The food stamp program is good for businesses and creates jobs,” Sablan has explained. “That additional $30.5 million worth of food included in P.L. 113-79 will have to be unloaded at the port, trucked to the store, put on the shelf, and rung up at the cash register. All of that activity adds to our economy and puts people to work.

“It also means new tax revenues for the Commonwealth government: about $6 million.”

Enough to eat

Sablan’s work to increase food assistance has also been attacked for encouraging “dependency,” a charge he is quick to rebut.

“Three-quarters of the people who are getting food assistance in the Northern Marianas are children,” Sablan says. “Out of 8,000 people on food stamps almost 6,000 are kids. And another 2,000 are people who stay at home to take care of little ones or who are disabled, or old, or actually working but not making enough to feed their families.

“Those are the people I am working for.

“I suppose there are always a few who try to take advantage of the system. But I’m not going take food away from children or the elderly just to punish a few cheaters or because a few commentators on Fox News look down their noses at people who need help.

“Feed the hungry: that’s what I learned at church and that’s what my culture teaches.

“Besides without enough food, children’s bodies don’t develop, their brains don’t develop, they don’t do well in school. And as all politicians love to say: those children are our future.

“We have both a moral and a cultural imperative to make sure everyone has food,” Sablan said. “But there is the practical reason, too. We cannot afford to starve our future leaders.”