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Emergency Relief for Hungry Families Act of 2025
To amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to exempt discounting food from the equal treatment requirement during a government shutdown, and for other purposes.
Summary
This bill amends the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to allow retail food stores to offer discounts on food during government shutdowns when supplemental nutrition assistance program participants are not receiving benefits or are receiving reduced benefits. During these periods, stores would be able to offer such incentives without requiring a waiver or violating federal equal treatment requirements. The provision applies only to periods when appropriations have lapsed and SNAP benefits are reduced or unavailable.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
- Sen. Wyden, Ron [D-OR] (D-OR)
1 cosponsor
- Sen. Merkley, Jeff [D-OR] (D-OR)
Actions (2)
- Nov 6, 2025 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. · senate
- Nov 6, 2025 Introduced in Senate
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
November 6, 2025
Mr. Wyden (for himself and Mr. Merkley) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
A BILL
To amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to exempt discounting food from the equal treatment requirement during a government shutdown, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Emergency Relief for Hungry Families Act of 2025”.
SEC. 2. EXEMPTION FROM EQUAL TREATMENT REQUIREMENT.
Section 9(j) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (7 U.S.C. 2018(j)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(6) Exemption from equal treatment requirement.—
“(A) Definition of covered period.—In this paragraph, the term ‘covered period’ means a period during which—
“(i) interim continuing appropriations or full-year appropriations for a fiscal year for the Department of Agriculture have lapsed; and
“(ii) participants of the supplemental nutrition assistance program are not receiving—
“(I) any benefits; or
“(II) the full amount of benefits.
“(B) Waiver.—Notwithstanding paragraph (2), during a covered period, an authorized retail food store may, without seeking a waiver, offer an incentive, which shall be effective for the entire duration of the covered period.
“(C) Effect.—An incentive offered by an authorized retail food store under subparagraph (B) shall not be deemed a violation of the equal treatment requirement described in section 278.2(b) of title 7, Code of Federal Regulations (or a successor regulation).”. <all>
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