Bill would send government leftovers to the poor

WASHINGTON – Despite the millions of Americans who go hungry every day, government leftovers have been going straight to the trash because of strict liability laws.

Those rules could soon change as a result of legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that would encourage the government and its food contractors to donate their extra food to soup kitchens and food banks.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which Collins is the ranking Republican, passed the measure on Thursday. It now goes to the Senate floor, where it is expected to pass. The House passed a companion bill at the end of last year.

Collins’ measure would require that all federal contracts above $25,000 for food services include a clause encouraging the donation of excess, wholesome food to nonprofit organizations. The law also would protect the donor from civil or criminal liability, a move Collins calls “common sense.”

Maine is the 11th poorest state, with nearly 13 percent of its residents going hungry, said the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit that works to wipe out hunger in the United States. A 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that of the 35.5 million hungry Americans, 12.6 million were children. There are more than 6,000 poor children in Penobscot County alone, according to 2006 Census Bureau data.

Because of the sinking economy and escalating oil prices, “families are being forced to choose between paying their bills and buying food,” Collins said after the committee’s passage of the measure. “This, combined with grocery stores becoming more efficient and donating less, has caused the demand for food to reach a record high.”

Collins told of a teacher who couldn’t afford food because of skyrocketing heating bills and unexpected medical costs.

While donations seem to have remained the same at the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Brewer and Auburn, the demand for food has increased, said Paul Tarr, warehouse operations manager of the food bank. Tarr, like Collins, attributes this to the price of fuel.

“If the price of fuel goes up, the price of everything else goes up,” Tarr said. “Everything someone needs to spend more money on is less money they have to spend on food.”

Because of higher demand, Good Shepherd is “moving food out almost as fast as it’s coming in,” Tarr said.

Tarr supports the legislation, saying he believes it will bring in more food in larger volumes to food banks and pantries throughout the nation.

Portland’s Preble Street Resource Center, the largest soup kitchen in northern New England and one of 250 food shelters in Maine, is experiencing bare shelves for the first time in decades.

Serving more than 330,000 meals a year, the center depends on donations for 90 percent of the food it serves. But its supplies have become meager at a time when poverty is on the rise.

“We all know it makes sense to share, it’s one of the first principles we are taught as children,” representatives from the soup kitchen said in a letter of endorsement for the legislation. “We all know that in this richly blessed nation, there is ‘enough to go around.’ Nothing makes more sense than to make our inclination and obligation to care for our neighbors in need part of our federal administrative practice.”