Sunday, July 25, 2004 Van Hollen Applauds Food Security Initiative Washington, D.C. - Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S . 2507 , the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, which both reflects--and improves upon--the bipartisan child nutrition bill we passed in the House on March 24 of this year. Like H.R. 3873, the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act will provide food security to more children and families than ever before, eliminate needless paperwork for program providers and place a renewed emphasis on obesity prevention through improved nutrition and greater exercise. But--fortunately for America's children--S . 2507 goes further. It expands the popular Lugar summer food pilot to two additional states. It gives five states new authority to look at eliminating the ``reduced price'' category for school lunch. It establishes important new cost containment measures to ensure the integrity of the WIC program. And--perhaps most significantly for those of us interested in increasing participation rates among eligible children--S . 2507 provides mandatory funding for all schools to directly certify food stamp-eligible children for free school lunch by 2008--and greater flexibility for schools to verify income through third party sources like TANF and Medicaid. These measures take an important step towards eliminating at least some of the barriers that currently keep otherwise eligible children from accessing these critical programs. Mr. Speaker, in closing I'd like to thank Chairman BOEHNER, our ranking member Mr. MILLER, Mr. CASTLE and Ms. WOOLSEY--along with Senators COCHRAN and HARKIN--for all of their hard work on this important legislation. I think we can all be proud that--at least on this issue--we have done the people's work.