USDA to fully fund November food stamps as it appeals court order

Olivia M. Bridges, CQ-Roll Call on Nov 7, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department on Friday said it will fully fund November food stamp benefits in compliance with a federal court order but also on Friday asked the Supreme Court to immediately block the order while it appeals.

“This Court’s intervention is urgently needed,” the administration said in its filing to the highest court. “To comply with yesterday’s abrupt TRO, the government must transfer billions of dollars to SNAP and send that money to the States by tonight. Once those billions are out the door, there is no ready mechanism for the government to recover those funds — to the significant detriment of those other critical social programs whose budgets the district court ordered the government to raid.”

It asked for administrative relief by 9:30 p.m. Friday.

The Supreme Court filing came after the USDA had said in a memo to state agency directors of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that the department would on Friday complete the needed processes “to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT (electronic benefit transfers) processor.”

The memo from Patrick Penn, the USDA deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, went out the day after a federal judge in Rhode Island gave the USDA a day to fully pay November benefits.

House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who had said she was “cautiously optimistic” after the memo that full food stamp benefits would reach recipients, also warned of more obstacles.

“We must remain vigilant to ensure this assistance actually reaches the families it is intended for immediately,” she said in a statement. This uncertainty and delay is entirely unnecessary. If the Trump administration wanted to fully fund food stamps, they could do so with no ambiguity.”

The administration made its filing to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, asking for an emergency stay. The administration says Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island erred Thursday by ordering USDA to use about $4 billion in so-called Section 32 money to help pay $8.5 billion to $9 billion in November SNAP benefits. The judge had earlier ordered the department to also use $4.65 billion in a contingency fund.

But the administration says Congress didn’t authorize money from Section 32, an account established under a 1930s law that is funded by customs receipts and appropriations. Approximately 42 million people receive SNAP benefits each month.

“Instead, a single district judge has devised his own solution: ordering USDA to cover the SNAP shortfall by transferring billions of dollars that were appropriated for different, equally critical food-security programs—and to do so within just one business day (i.e., by today). This unprecedented injunction makes a mockery of the separation of powers,” the government filing said, asserting that the court doesn’t have the ability to direct appropriations.

“There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions,” it said.

The administration has said since the partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1 that it couldn’t use the contingency fund and then couldn’t use Section 32 money, only to be directed by the court to do so. Its interim effort to use only the contingency fund meant potential delays of weeks as agencies reworked their systems to handle reduced benefits, resulting in a missed court deadline for partial payments.

The USDA says the Section 32 account is mostly directed toward child nutrition programs, including National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, Summer Food Service Program and Summer EBT, also known as SUN Bucks.

The USDA said the NSLP serves approximately 29 million children with low-cost or free school lunches. It added that transferring the $4 billion to fund SNAP would cause a “shortfall” in child nutrition programs and require additional appropriations.

But SNAP, like child nutrition programs, also serves kids. The USDA said in a July report that in fiscal 2023, about 39% of SNAP recipients were children.