To: The United States Senate

Don’t snatch food from the mouths of hungry people!

The House recently passed a bill that would keep 2 million people from receiving lifesaving food aid. Don’t use food aid to increase subsidies to the world’s largest shipping companies and leave 2 million more people hungry every year.

Why is this important?

LATEST UPDATE (June 18):

The Senate recently introduced its version of the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act (S. 2444). Thanks to your efforts, it does NOT take critical food-aid dollars away from hungry people to subsidize the world’s largest shipping companies. The bill now faces a vote by the Senate Commerce Committee. If it passes, the full Senate will vote on it and it will have to be reconciled with the House version of the bill, which provides for increased subsidies to shipping companies using food-aid funds.

But the fight is far from over. Amendments could still be introduced when the full Senate deliberates on the Coast Guard bill. Changes could also happen in the conference committee of Congress when both versions of the bill are reconciled. Continue to tell your senators not to use food aid to increase subsidies to the world’s largest shipping companies, leaving 2 million more people hungry every year.

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Dear advocates,

I am outraged. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would keep 2 million people from receiving lifesaving food aid.

This bill takes critical food-aid dollars away from hungry people to pay for the increased cost of transporting food. This subsidy to the world’s largest shipping companies was quietly inserted as a provision in the Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill for fiscal year 2015. This provision has nothing to do with the U.S. Coast Guard and is a blatant attempt by special interests to line their own pockets while more people overseas go hungry.

The lives of millions of people should not be sacrificed to subsidize shipping companies. These companies already take up to six months to deliver emergency food aid to countries that need it. Increasing the shipping companies’ subsidies will not make them deliver U.S. food aid faster. Frankly, it’s a waste of our taxpayer dollars.

A Senate committee is now debating the Coast Guard reauthorization bill. Tell your senators and the Senate’s leaders: Don’t use food aid to increase subsidies to the world’s largest shipping companies and leave 2 million more people hungry every year.

For more information on ways we can make our country’s food-aid programs better – without increasing their cost – see www.bread.org/ol.

Ryan Quinn, Senior Policy Analyst
Bread for the World