crs_reports: R49345

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R49345 Implementation of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 (P.L. 119-69): In Brief 2026-09-09T04:00:00Z 2026-09-12T05:09:57Z Active Reports Kara Clifford Billings, Randy Alison Aussenberg   The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 (P.L. 119-69) was enacted on January 14, 2026. The act allows whole and reduced-fat (2%) milk in federally funded school lunches and exempts milk from federal saturated fat limits. Such milks were previously prohibited from the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) since school year (SY) 2011-2012, following a change made by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-296) to align milk served in NSLP with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs). P.L. 119-69 also expands nondairy milk alternatives in the program. After publishing initial guidance implementing the law for NSLP, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) (now the Food and Nutrition Administration [FNA]) published a final rule on May 8, 2026, implementing the milk-fat related provisions in the law (not the nondairy-related provisions). In addition to NSLP, the final rule allows whole and 2% milk in other child nutrition programs including the School Breakfast Program (SBP), Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), and Special Milk Program (SMP), citing the updated 2025-2030 DGAs (released in January 2026) as a basis for the change. This report begins with a brief history of milk in the school meals programs. It then summarizes the provisions in P.L. 119-69, discusses USDA’s implementation of the law, and concludes with some considerations for this policy area. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R49345/R49345.1.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R49345.html

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