Garamendi reintroduces legislation to support ‘Buy American’ order

On the same day that President Joe Biden issued an executive order to support “Buy American” policies for goods and services, Rep. John Garamendi, D-Solano, revived a bill to extend such policies toward school lunches.

Garamendi’s American Food for American Schools Act, which had previously been introduced in 2016 and then reintroduced in 2019, seeks to expand the “Buy American” requirements in current federal law by mandating that school districts buy domestically sourced products for school meals. The bill would require districts to seek a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to purchase foreignsourced food items funded by the National School Lunch Program. These waivers would only be issued if the domestically produced food was cost-prohibitive or not available, according to a news release from Garamendi’s

office.

In addition, the bill aims to require districts to notify parents of any foreignsourced foods being served to students by posting said exemptions from the USDA to the school’s website. This, Garamendi’s office wrote, would improve public accountability and provide an incentive for American farmers to provide affordable, domestically grown products to school districts in need of them.

“Even in Northern Californian and Central Valley farming communities, some school districts use taxpayer dollars to buy imported foods. Some of those imported foods have been recalled due to safety concerns when they could have been sourced locally in California,” Garamendi said in a statement. “That’s why my American Food for American Schools Act would ensure that our schoolchildren are served nutritious, American-grown foods that are produced under the strictest safety standards in the world.”

Garamendi praised Biden’s executive order and viewed the American Food for American Schools Act as a complement to it.

“This legislation also supports the Biden Administration’s strong actions to advance Buy American policies that will support our middle class and generate a muchneeded economic stimulus for our country,” he said in a statement.

The bill’s original cosponsors included Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio; Jeff Fortenberry, R-Nebraska; Tim Ryan, D-Ohio; Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale; Salud Cabajal, D-Santa Barbara; Don Young, R-Alaska; and Derek Kilmer, D-Washington.

The full text of the legislation can be read at Garamendi.house.gov/sites/garamendi.house.gov/files/GARAME_024_xml.pdf.