Month: March 2026

Last Friday, March 20, marked the “Second Funnel” deadline in the Iowa State Legislature. We now have a better sense of which bills are “dead” for the session and which are still moving. Thanks to your advocacy, we’ve already marked a few small wins. But the session isn’t over yet, and there are still a lot of threats to food access being thrown around under the golden dome.

The Governor’s “MAHA” Legislation

The Governor’s “Make America Healthy Again” or “MAHA” legislation has advanced in both chambers in slightly different forms. HF 2676 passed the House, and SF 2367 passed out of committee in the Senate and is now on the “unfinished business” debate calendar.

These bills contain language that directs Iowa HHS to continuously request a waiver from USDA to maintain Iowa’s SNAP food restriction waiver that took effect on January 1, 2026. After a barrage of advocacy throughout several subcommittee meetings, HF 2676 was amended on the floor to clean up the bill language and ensure that Iowa’s participation in Summer EBT would not be predicated on the USDA approving a “healthy foods waiver.” While this was a small victory, IHC continues to believe that parents should be trusted to make the best food choices for their families and that the current restriction waiver has caused a multitude of unintended consequences that have banned healthy items and led to confusion for SNAP participants and retailers alike. 

While we want to see all Iowans eating nutritious foods and leading healthy lives, we believe that proven, evidence-based programs like Double Up Food Bucks provide a far better avenue to achieve this goal by directly addressing the primary reason SNAP participants struggle to eat healthy: the high cost of healthy foods. 

Another amendment to HF 2676 that was adopted on the House floor added language that seeks to re-write school meal standards in Iowa. The health and nutrition of Iowa’s students has long been at the forefront of our advocacy for expanding free school meals in our state and we are eager to work with the legislature to improve nutrition access and education statewide. But this amendment fails to expand access to school meals and instead proposes major rewrites to Iowa’s school meal guidelines at a time when school nutrition officials are already anticipating significant federal changes. If Iowa implements standards that differ from federal guidelines, it could put millions of dollars in school meal funding at risk.

With the outcome of these bills still unclear, we are encouraging our legislators to reject these harmful proposals and instead focus on finding state funding for Double Up Food Bucks to support the health of low-income families in our communities.

“Welfare Reform” Efforts

Thanks to the hard work of all our advocates, we are pleased to share that HF 2716 has been defeated for this session. This bill had a number of harmful proposals, including kicking some pregnant women, infants, and children off WIC and establishing a 12-month residency requirement for public assistance programs in Iowa that was against federal law. Defeating this bill is a major victory for anti-hunger advocates! But, we shouldn’t celebrate too prematurely.

Senate File 2422 already passed the Senate and is alive and well in the House. While SF 2422 largely codifies existing federal SNAP policy in Iowa, the House has indicated they may attempt to re-insert provisions from HF 2716, and we will need to remain vigilant to ensure additional harmful proposals stay out of a final “welfare reform” package.

This bill is not in its final form by any means yet. If we could amend it in committee, there would be several amendments I would be bringing forward…We are going to continue to work with the Senate to make sure that we can come to some final compromise and those discussions are already taking place. 

Rep. Austin Harris, Chair, Iowa House of Representatives Health & Human Services Committee Meeting, March 19, 2026

We will continue to advocate in the coming days and weeks to protect Iowans’ access to SNAP, WIC, and other nutrition programs.

Budget Priorities : Investing in Iowans Feeding Iowans

Now that the Iowa legislature has passed the second funnel, and the Revenue Estimating Conference has met, we have officially entered “budget season.” The Iowa Hunger Coalition is advocating for investments across the state budget to help address food insecurity and ensure all Iowans have access to the nutrition they need to thrive. 

In the Iowa Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) budget, we are requesting:

• $1 million appropriation to the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative for the Double Up Food Bucks program.

We also support the following budget asks from the Governor’s proposed HHS budget:

• $19.9 million appropriation from the Technology Reinvestment Fund (TRF) in FY 2027 “for the design, development, and implementation for the new eligibility determination system for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Family Investment Program (FIP), and the Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA).”
  
  
• $10.1 million appropriation from the General Fund for additional SNAP administration costs due to changes from HR1.
  • $8.7 million from Community Access & Eligibility
  • $1.4 million from Accountability, Compliance, & Program Integrity
    
    
• State administrative costs to operate the Summer EBT (SUN Bucks) program are estimated to be around $2 million. This was not included in the Governor’s initial HHS budget request due to the timing of the announcement on Summer EBT, but is supported by the administration. These administrative costs could be shared 50/50 between the Health & Human Services and Education budgets.

Finally, IHC is also advocating for the following budget priorities for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS):

• State investment in the Choose Iowa Food Bank Purchasing Program and Choose Iowa School Purchasing Program.

• The Governor’s budget proposal includes $200,000 for the Choose Iowa Food Bank Purchasing Program, but does not include an appropriation for the school program. We would like to see robust funding for both programs.

You can help us by reaching out to key legislators on the Appropriations Committees below and advocating for the priorities listed above!

Appropriations Committee Leadership

Health & Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Leadership

Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee Leadership

Thank you for your ongoing advocacy! Questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out at iowahungercoalition@gmail.com.

This week marks roughly the halfway point in the Iowa state legislative session, and a lot has happened over the past two weeks. Here’s the latest update on where bills stand and what advocacy actions you can be taking right now.

“Welfare Reform” Efforts

The House and Senate both have “welfare reform” legislation this session. While we have concerns with both bills, the House version is considerably more harmful.

• SF 2422 passed the Iowa Senate last Wednesday, February 25, with a 30-17 vote. The Iowa Hunger Coalition successfully lobbied to remove a harmful provision that would have directed the state to share the immigration status of non-applicant SNAP household members to the federal government. While we still have concerns with parts of this bill, it largely codifies current SNAP policies.
  
  
  • A House subcommittee is scheduled for SF 2422 for 8:00am on Tuesday, March 10, in Room 103. Contact the members of the subcommittee below and tell them not to make unnecessary changes to Iowa’s SNAP code.
    
    
    • Rep. Austin Harris – austin.harris@legis.iowa.gov
    • Rep. Ann Meyer – ann.meyer@legis.iowa.gov
    • Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell – beth.wessel-kroeschell@legis.iowa.gov
      
      
• HF 2716 is eligible for a floor vote in the House, but the bill has not yet been scheduled for debate (and we hope to keep it that way). The House bill is considerably worse than the Senate version, and would do a number of harmful things, including requiring 12-months continuous residency to qualify for public assistance programs and restricting WIC based on citizenship status.
  
  
  • Contact your Representative in the House and urge them to vote NO on HF 2716, or at the very least strike Sections 12 and 15 from the bill.
    

“MAHA” Bills and Codifying Iowa’s SNAP Restriction Waiver

Similarly, the House and Senate both have their own separate versions of the Governor’s “Make America Healthy Again” or “MAHA” legislation. Both versions contain a provision that seeks to codify Iowa’s food and beverage restrictions for SNAP and Summer EBT.

But this week, during floor debate in the House, a number of harmful amendments were added in, including language from a bill last year that would request a waiver from federal nutrition standards for school meals.

• HF 2676 passed the Iowa House of Representatives on Tuesday, March 3, with a vote of 65-30. Ten amendments were introduced by both Republicans and Democrats. An amendment by Rep. Austin Harris did clean up some of the SNAP waiver language, which was an improvement and should be celebrated as a small win. Unfortunately, the House also adopted an amendment by Rep. Derek Wulf that seeks to waive federal nutrition standards for school meals, similar to HF 851 which passed the House last year.
  
  
• SF 2367 passed out of the Senate State Government Committee on March 3, and is now eligible for floor debate. The following day, Sen. Kara Warme, Chair of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee, introduced a strike-and-replace amendment to adopt the language from the House bill. This could be a sign the Senate intends to take up the House’s language for a vote.
  
  
  • Contact your State Senator and urge them to vote NO on SF 2367/HF 2676! We should not be using Iowa’s school children as a testing ground for unproven nutritional standards and tying the state’s participation in Summer EBT to having a restriction waiver.

Investing in Iowans Feeding Iowans

The Iowa Farm Act continues to make progress in both the House and Senate. This legislative package, introduced by Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, makes positive changes to the Choose Iowa Food Bank Purchasing Program and would permanently establish the Choose Iowa School Purchasing Program.

• SF 2465 passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, March 4. The bill is now eligible for a floor vote in the Senate.
  
  
  • Contact your State Senator and let them know you support investing in the Choose Iowa Food Purchasing provisions in the Iowa Farm Act!
    
    
• HF 2340 is still sitting in the House Ways & Means Committee and has not yet had a subcommittee scheduled. This bill is considered funnel-proof.
  

Progress on Double Up Food Bucks has unfortunately stalled after a failed committee vote on SSB 3145, which among other things, included a $1 million appropriation for the Double Up Food Bucks program. While the failed vote was a setback, there are still avenues for advocacy on this issue.

• SF 2027 is a clean $1 million appropriation for Double Up Food Bucks and is still considered “alive” and funnel-proof.

• HF 970, which you may recall passed the House last year, makes a $1 million appropriation for Double Up Food Bucks contingent upon the state having a SNAP restriction waiver in place. On February 24, a Senate subcommittee was assigned to the bill, which could be an indication the Senate intends to use this bill as a vehicle for the Double Up Food Bucks appropriation. To make things confusing, the waiver language in HF 970 does not match the waiver language that was just passed in HF 2676.

We’ll be sure to keep you in the loop as bills continue to move leading up to the legislature’s “Second Funnel” deadline on Friday, March 20. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at iowahungercoalition@gmail.com if you have any questions.