TRUMP PLAN TO CUT FOOD STAMPS BLOCKED

Federal judge rules slashing benefits for 700K ‘capricious’

WASHINGTON

A federal judge on Sunday formally struck down a Trump administration attempt to end food stamp benefits for nearly 700,000 unemployed people, blocking as “arbitrary and capricious” the first of three such planned measures to restrict the federal food safety net.

In a 67-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia condemned the Agriculture Department for not justifying or even addressing the impact of the sweeping change on states, saying its shortcomings had been placed in stark relief amid the coronavirus pandemic, during which unemployment has quadrupled and rosters of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have grown by more than 17 percent with more than 6 million new enrollees.

The rule “at issue in this litigation radically and abruptly alters decades of regulatory practice, leaving States scrambling and exponentially increasing food insecurity for tens of thousands of Americans,” Howell wrote, adding that the Agriculture Department “has been icily silent about how many (adults) would have been denied SNAP benefits had the changes sought . . . been in effect while the pandemic rapidly spread across the country.” The judge concluded, the department’s “utter failure to address the issue renders the agency action arbitrary and capricious.”

Howell’s ruling granted summary judgment to a coalition of 19 states along with D.C., New York City and private groups who sued to stop the new rule, finalized in December, to eliminate states’ discretion to waive work requirements in distressed economic areas.

Howell temporarily enjoined the proposal March 13, the same day President Donald Trump declared the coronavirus outbreak a national emergency. Congress then waived the requirement for the duration of the emergency as part of economic relief legislation, and the Trump administration suspended its planned April implementation date.

However, the Agriculture Department appealed the judge’s earlier order, and absent court intervention the rule would take full effect at the end of the state of emergency.