A federal judge Sunday struck down a Trump administration rule that could have stripped food stamps from nearly 700,000 people. A coalition of attorneys general from 19 states, the District of Columbia and the City of New York filed the lawsuit below in January, challenging the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) rule.
The rule, which was to go into effect in April, would have limited states’ ability to extend benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps,” beyond a three-month period for certain adults. In scathing 67-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell formally struck the rule down stating that the USDA "has been icily silent about how many [adults] would have been denied SNAP benefits had the changes sought ... been in effect while the pandemic rapidly spread across the country," he added, and that "utter failure to address the issue renders the agency action arbitrary and capricious."
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