Week ahead: Child nutrition programs under scrutiny

Members of the House Education and the Workforce Committee will meet next week to talk about waste, fraud and abuse in federal child nutrition programs.

The Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education will meet Tuesday, following reports from the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that those programs are not serving those most in need.

According to estimates, the federal government this year will spend about $21 billion on child nutrition programs that are intended to provide access to healthy meals for low-income students and their family members.

{mosads}Earlier this month, members of the American Heart Association took to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress to reauthorize the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which also set new school lunch standards backed by first lady Michelle Obama.

Gil Harden, assistant inspector general for audit at the USDA, and Kay Brown, director of education, workforce and income security at the GAO are expected to testify at Tuesday’s hearing.

On Wednesday, the workforce protections subcommittee will hold a hearing to discuss reforming the workers’ compensation program for federal employees.

Elsewhere on the Hill, lawmakers will continue to weigh bills that could form the basis for a new overhaul of energy regulations. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will look at 17 of Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) energy reform bills at a hearing on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce committee is planning to mark up legislation that could speed up the approval of new medicines and health treatments. The 21st Century Cures bill would overhaul the Food and Drug Administration’s authority and extend protections for makers of life-saving drugs for rare disorders.

In the Senate, Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) hopes to have a markup on his financial regulations bill, which would make the most significant changes to the industry since the 2010 Dodd-Frank law.

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