Produced by the Legislative Committee of the Coconino County Democratic Party and Democrats of the Red Rocks
FEDERAL ACTION ALERT –July 17, 2023
A.
A. Urge both Congress and our Senate Representatives to increase TEFAP funding in the 2023 Farm Bill to help food banks meet rising demand!! TEFAP stands for the Emergency Food Assistance Program. The federal government moves nutritious food from farms to food banks across the Feeding America network. As family food budgets are slashed due to inflation or job insecurity, more funding to food banks is desperately needed. Last year 30% of the food distributed to Feeding America came via TEFAP. The numbers don’t lie. We need TEFAP funding!! In 2023, Black communities were three times more likely to face hunger, with 22% of Black children living in food-insecure households. Latino families were 2 ½ times more likely to face hunger and Native Americans were 3 times more likely – with 20% of Native American individuals experiencing food insecurity! We need to double the funding for TEFAP in the 2023 Farm Bill and we need to expand assistance for TEFAP storage and distribution to get food from point A to point B safely. Insist our Representatives do the right thing and expand TEFAP in the 2023 Farm Bill!!
B. Insist our House Representative oppose any effort to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB)! Urge our Representative to oppose the Fiscal Year 2024 House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill and its proposals that would end public media. Multiple studies have shown that eliminating CPB funding would devastate public media service, forcing stations to cut valued programs and services or go off the air completely. Public media is the only communications service that reaches virtually every American household – including communities that are undeserved by other media sources. Rural, remote and tribal communities are more dependent on this federal support and would be the hardest hit by these proposals. For about $1.40 per American annually, federal funding for public media is a worthy investment that provides all Americans with access to programming and services that inform and enrich their daily lives. Tell our Representative to preserve local public media stations and vote against the House bill!!
Sen. Mark Kelly: Call (202) 224-2235 (DC); Email via his website at
https://www.kelly.senate.gov/contact/. Tag the Senator at @senmarkkelly.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: Call (202) 224-4521 (DC) or (602) 598-7327. Email via her website at
https://www.sinema.senate.gov/contact-kyrsten. Tag the Senator at @senatorsinema.
Rep. Eli Crane: Call (202) 225-3361 (DC) or email via website at
https://crane.house.gov/contact. Tag the Congressman @RepEliCrane
President Biden: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
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