United States -- June 23, 2026: A federal district judge has blocked the administration from moving forward with pilot programs designed to restrict Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients from purchasing certain food and beverage items with their benefits.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) exceeded its legal authority and violated federal administrative procedures when it approved state-level food restriction waivers. The summary judgment officially vacates the USDA’s approvals for programs in five states: Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
The decision delivers a substantial legal setback to a core policy initiative of the administration’s public health agenda. The effort is championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. under the "Make America Healthy Again" initiative, alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
The Policy and the Waivers The legal battle stems from a shift in federal nutrition policy. Departing from decades of prior agency precedent, the USDA began approving applications from states seeking to restrict specific items—including soda, candy, energy drinks, and processed sugary foods—from SNAP purchases. To date, the administration has signed waivers for 23 states.
Proponents of the restrictions argue that federal programs should not subsidize these items. Following the ruling, a USDA spokesperson stated that the agency will continue to push for policies that encourage healthy choices for families and communities reliant on SNAP.
Additionally, the administration had tied these waivers to broader state budget negotiations. Following federal Medicaid spending reductions passed in 2025, the administration promoted the SNAP restriction waivers as a positive factor for states trying to secure access to a competitive 50 billion dollar Rural Health Fund designed to offset those health care cuts.
The Legal Ground for the Ruling The lawsuit, Aragon v. Rollins, was filed by low-income SNAP recipients represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
In her decision, Judge Jackson did not rule on the public health merits of limiting sugar or processed food consumption. Instead, the court focused strictly on constitutional separation of powers and statutory boundaries:
Exceeding Congressional Mandate: Under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, Congress explicitly defines food broadly as any food or food product for home consumption, which encompasses non-alcoholic beverages, snack foods, and candy. The court ruled that an executive agency cannot use administrative waivers to fundamentally rewrite a definition established by statute.
Procedural Violations: Federal regulations require the USDA to publish a mandatory 30-day notice in the Federal Register for any pilot project expected to have a significant public impact, allowing for public review and comment. The USDA bypassed this step when approving the state waivers.
Retail and Human Impacts Filed in Court The legal challenge highlighted significant practical complications that a state-by-state patchwork of restrictions would introduce into the food supply chain and low-income households.
Retailer Logistics and Economic Burden: Food retail trade groups, including the National Association of Convenience Stores and the National Grocers Association, submitted evidence detailing operational hurdles. Each of the states defined restricted products differently, and states failed to provide grocery stores with standardized Universal Product Code (UPC) lists of banned items. A retail industry study cited in the complaint estimated that programming point-of-sale systems to dynamically block products based on shifting, state-by-state definitions would cost the food retail sector 1.56 billion dollars upfront.
Dietary and Medical Vulnerabilities: Individual plaintiffs testified that rigid, sweeping item bans fail to account for complex health realities. The filings detailed cases of families caring for individuals with severe developmental disorders, such as Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). For these individuals, specific processed items represent the only safe caloric intake they can physically tolerate, meaning sudden restrictions threaten severe nutritional deficiencies.
Current Status and Broader Outlook While the ruling directly vacates the waivers in the five plaintiff states, the restrictions technically remain on the books in the remaining 18 states where waivers were approved. However, legal experts note that Judge Jackson’s ruling provides a legal roadmap for retail groups or residents in those states to block their local programs using the same statutory arguments.
The federal government is expected to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Until an appellate court intervenes, the administration's overhaul of the food assistance program remains stalled across the five states named in the order.