As the Chairwoman of the Nutrition, Oversight, and Department Operations Subcommittee on the House Committee on Agriculture, I am dedicated to eradicating hunger throughout Connecticut and the United States. I have tackled this issue in schools, and among veterans, and fought to preserve and improve our bedrock federal nutrition programs. Specifically, I:

• Put Baby Formula Back on Shelves: My bill, the Access to Baby Formula Act, which passed the House and was signed into law by the President, would permanently ensure access to a range of baby formulas in times of crisis.

• Fought Veteran Hunger: I introduced the bipartisan Feed Hungry Veterans Act, which would eliminate barriers to federal nutrition benefits for veterans with disabilities that preclude them from working.

• Tackled food insecurity on college campuses: I championed legislation to prevent college hunger by easing access to nutrition benefits for low-income college students.

• Advocated to end child hunger:  I authored 3 bipartisan bills to eradicate child hunger. These bills would improve the federal nutrition program aimed at women, infants, and children, ensure children in transitional housing situations can remain on free and reduced-price lunch, and create a $100 million program to fund school kitchens interested in transitioning to scratch cooking.

• Supported an increase in benefits: As Chairwoman of the NODO Subcommittee, I advocated for the USDA to move forward with an evaluation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which resulted in a permanent 27% increase in benefits nationwide.

• Ensured access to food throughout the pandemic: During the COVID-19 pandemic, I introduced legislation to ensure workers who became unemployed due to COVID-19 were able to access food assistance, and changes to SNAP to cover costs for grocery delivery to elderly and immunocompromised recipients. I also supported increased funding directly to food banks, and programs that connected food banks with local farmers who were having to dump milk and other usable products.

• Helped secure a White House Conference on Hunger: I supported the creation and funding for a White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in September 2022. The Conference, and the preparatory work leading up to it, will accelerate progress and drive significant change to end hunger, improve nutrition and physical activity, reduce diet-related disease, and close the disparities around them.