Lifesaving Food Aid

Floor Speech

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Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the 43rd time today to call on the Trump administration to restore lifesaving food aid for starving children around the world.

Edesia Nutrition, an organization in my district, in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, manufactures Plumpy'Nut, a nutritional supplement that is needed to get starving children back to health. When kids are starving, their organs break down, and they cannot digest conventional food.

Millions of lives have been saved by this product, and now there are thousands of boxes sitting in a warehouse in Rhode Island because the Trump administration has stopped this program.

They continue to promise that they are going to bring it back online. Over and over again, they have said that this program will continue. They have even named the organization in my district. They have said that it will continue, but it has been 9 months, and we are still waiting.

We are about to debate and vote on a budget. What is the purpose of passing a budget if the administration will just ignore it?

I have spoken on this floor about the humanitarian necessity to restore this program, the national security necessity to restore this program, but it is a constitutional necessity as well because the legislative branch has the authority to pass budgets and the executive must execute on them.

I will continue to speak on this floor every day until this program is restored.

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