NY AG James Presses Fight Against Trump Administration Rule to Curtail Food Assistance

New York Attorney General Letitia James said a proposed federal rule that would curtail food assistance would be more destructive than ever as the nation faces the coronavirus, after a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing the measure.

James and a coalition of state attorneys general said the rule would deny assistance to hundreds of thousands of Americans.

The Friday order from Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia, which referenced the pandemic, put in place a preliminary injunction that for now blocks the U.S. Department of Agriculture from implementing the rule.

James said the rule, if it had gone into effect, would have cut off access to food assistance for more than 50,000 people in New York City alone.

COVID-19 is a declared pandemic by the World Health Organization and officials say New York has the most recorded cases in the nation with more than 1,300 across the state as of midday Tuesday.

The coronavirus forced New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to implement sweeping new crowd capacity rules that closed gyms, movie theaters and casinos and banned on-premise service at restaurants and bars.

Howell wrote that the new rule, which was set to go into effect in April, would “dramatically alter” long-standing operations of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and put more stringent requirements on the state’s award of those benefits.

“Especially now, as a global pandemic poses widespread health risks, guaranteeing that government officials at both the federal and state levels have flexibility to address the nutritional needs of residents and ensure their well-being through programs like SNAP, is essential,” she wrote in the order.

COVID-19 is a declared pandemic by the World Health Organization and officials say New York has the most recorded cases in the nation with more than 1,300 across the state as of midday Tuesday.

Howell’s order is tied to a lawsuit filed by a cohort of states, including New York, that challenges the rule, which the lawsuit estimated would eliminate food assistance for nearly 700,000 people.

The lawsuit filed by the attorneys general alleges that the rule “arbitrarily” reverses a decades-old policy that gives states more discretion to seek work requirement waivers for areas that don’t have enough jobs for recipients.

There are time limits on benefits for unemployed people between the ages of 18 and 49, who are not disabled or raising children, according to the lawsuit. It argues the law allows states to seek waivers to suspend a time limit if an area has an unemployment rate of over 10% or does not have enough jobs.

“The Rule unequivocally runs afoul of Congress’s intent to ensure food security for low-income individuals,” according to the lawsuit, which also argues that states are in the best position to evaluate local economic conditions.

James hailed the preliminary injunction as a win in the face of a national public health emergency.

“At a time of national crisis, this decision is a win for common sense and basic human decency,” James said in a statement. “This rule is cruel to its core and runs counter to who we are and what we represent as a nation.”

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