Nebraska banning soda, energy drinks from SNAP under first federal waiver

The Hill

20-05-2025

Nebraska has received the first federal waiver to ban soda and energy drinks from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.
The move is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2026 as a part of a broader effort to restrict taxpayer dollars from contributing to the purchase of sugary drinks and junk food under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
'SNAP is about helping families in need get healthy food into their diets, but there's nothing nutritious about the junk we're removing with today's waiver,' Gov. Jim Pillen (R-Neb.) said in a Monday press release.
Governors in Iowa, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, West Virginia and Colorado are also considering similar changes to SNAP benefits.
Program funds are supplied by the USDA and administered individually by states. Recipients right now are able to buy anything except alcohol, tobacco and hot foods.
Researchers have long argued that SNAP restrictions are unlikely to change eating patterns, and that it will be costly for the federal government to track 650,000 food and beverage products on the market and 20,000 new products introduced annually, according to economic policy researcher Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach's 2017 testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture.
'The complexity is multiplied because there is no clear standard for defining foods as 'healthy' or 'unhealthy,' or as luxury goods. Creating such standards would be difficult at best, and would entail substantial administrative costs to categorize and track the nutritional profile of each good to produce a SNAP-eligible foods list,' she told lawmakers.
'The list would have to be maintained continuously and communicated to retailers and consumers in real time.'
However, Trump administration officials say Nebraska's new initiative falls in line with the Make America Healthy Again agenda, trademarked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has largely focused on eliminating disease through food consumption since his confirmation.
'The one place that I would say that we need to really change policy is the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches,' Kennedy previously said during a February appearance on Fox News's 'The Ingraham Angle.'
'There, the federal government in many cases is paying for it. And we shouldn't be subsidizing people to eat poison,' he added.
Prediabetes now affects one in three children ages 12 to 19 while 40 percent of school-aged children and adolescents have at least one chronic condition according to the USDA.