WASHINGTON, D.C. - Officials with the National Newspaper Association announced their support last week for a new bill that would force retailers to disclose food stamp payments.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Officials with the National Newspaper Association announced their support last week for a new bill that would force retailers to disclose food stamp payments.
The measure follows a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court which allowed the retailers to keep the information private. In its ruling, the high court sided with a grocers’ industry group and said the information could be treated as confidential, though the retailers do not submit the information to the government.
Officials with the NNA argued the information was paid for by tax dollars and “was about a program funded by tax dollars and should be public.”
Leslie Saras in, president of the Food Marketing Institute – one of the organizations involved in the lawsuit – countered that the case was “bigger than SNAP sales in grocery stores.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision will provide valuable guidance regarding the government’s responsibility to protect private commercial data in the future,” Saras in told the Food Safety News website.
On July 23, four U.S. Senators – Republicans Charles Grassley and John Cornyn and Democrats Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein – introduced the Open and Responsive Government Act which, they said, would repair a gaping hole created by the court ruling.
“The people’s business ought to be available to the people. It’s only through public oversight and transparency that we ensure government programs are operating as intended, without any waste, fraud, or abuse,” Grassley said in a media statement. “Transparency is something worth fighting for, and it seems we’re always in an uphill battle to keep the sunlight shining on government. This balanced and bipartisan bill responds to recent court rulings and regulatory actions, restoring pro- transparency principles and making crystal clear where Congress stands on the public’s right to know.”
Wisconsin newspaper publisher Andrew Johnson, who serves as NNA president, praised the bill and said the organization was always concerned when freedom of information is restricted.
“While we understand why the retailers would prefer not to have the origins of some business revenue made public, the fact remains that the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program that produces this revenue for them is a highly-visible public program that Congress is constantly reviewing and tweak-ing,” he said.
“This is an area where transparency should govern. More importantly, the Supreme Court in its decision knocked a big hole in FOIA not only with respect to business information held by agencies but even to make secret business information that is about a business and not by a business. We welcome the oversight of Congress here.”
Government data from 2016 shows that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP – has an annual cost of approximately $71 billion.