WASHINGTON, D.C.  — Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) called out the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, today and called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to use the billions of dollars in funding they have available to continue to provide citizens the crucial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to which they are entitled.

When Congress established SNAP, it directed the USDA to create and maintain a contingency fund to ensure there would not be lapses in benefits if appropriations were disrupted. As a result, the USDA has approximately $5,000,000,000 available to continue to provide benefits despite the current government shutdown.

The DDF letter to Secretary Rollins cites funding acts from 2024 and 2025, which authorize, and indeed obligate, the contingency fund to ensure benefits continue without interruption. DDF warned that failing to draw on those funds was unlawful and could exacerbate hardship for the 42 million Americans who depend on SNAP to feed their families.

”Secretary Rollins has both the authority and the legal obligation to act,” said Virginia Canter, DDF’s chief counsel and director for ethics and anticorruption. “Congress created the SNAP contingency fund precisely to prevent hunger during funding lapses. Choosing not to use it is a deliberate decision to deny food to 42 million Americans who are legally entitled to those benefits, including the elderly, children, and veterans.”

Congress has allocated billions of dollars to the USDA in SNAP reserve funds to ensure Americans do not go hungry. The USDA itself acknowledged that funding last month when it released their official Lapse in Funding Plan released in late September. Now it has reversed course, days away from other SNAP funding drying up.

“USDA’s decision is illegal, immoral, and cruel. It is imperative that the USDA follow the law and continue to provide SNAP benefits with the money allocated by Congress. And, if they do not, every member of Congress, especially those with oversight responsibilities on the House Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry must take action,” said Chris Swartz, senior ethics counsel at DDF.

Read the full letter HERE.

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Democracy Defenders Fund brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state and local allies across the country to defend in real-time the foundations of our democracy.