Press Releases
Pingree, Lawmakers to President Biden: Use Executive Authority to Lower Food Prices
Washington,
May 14, 2024
Maine First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree joined a bicameral group of her colleagues in Congress in encouraging the Biden-Harris Administration to use its executive authority to lower food prices for families. In a letter to President Joe Biden, the lawmakers—led by Congressman James P. McGovern (D-Mass.) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—note how corporations have been raking in record profits while families are being hit with higher costs for groceries, and they outline several executive actions that the Biden administration should take. “Americans across the political spectrum have pointed to the cost of food and groceries as their top concern related to inflation,” wrote the lawmakers. “These proposals are just examples of the additional actions your Administration can take to help families at the grocery store. The American people are relying on your Administration to combat corporate greed and higher food prices.” The full letter is available online here. Even as inflation has steadily cooled under Biden’s leadership, big food companies’ profit margins have skyrocketed while the price of food remains stubbornly high. Last year, a damning Senate report found 10% of recent price hikes on food were attributable to companies’ reducing the number of items in a bag. As a senior House Appropriator and member of the House Agriculture Committee charged with drafting a new Farm Bill, Pingree has been vocal on the issue of “shrinkflation” greed among big corporations and working to stave off harmful Republican cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). With President Biden putting a focus on food costs and shrinkflation during his State of the Union, Pingree invited Heather Paquette, president of Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine, to be her guest for the President’s address to Congress. Pingree has been a stalwart defender of SNAP and WIC – demanding that these programs remain intact and pushing for funding increases. In an Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearing last spring, Pingree confronted her Republican colleagues about how hard it is to stretch SNAP dollars and dared them to imagine eating on just $6 a day. ### |