Sponsors (5)
The bill prioritizes program integrity—reducing improper SNAP redemptions and providing clearer investigatory rules—but does so at the risk of freezing benefits, imposing burdens on vulnerable beneficiaries and small retailers, increasing administrative costs, and delaying implementation.
SNAP program integrity is strengthened: the bill reduces improper out-of-state benefit use and related-party redemptions, which can lower improper payments and preserve benefits for eligible recipients.
State SNAP agencies gain a clearer standard to investigate suspected out-of-state use, standardizing oversight and potentially improving fraud detection consistency across cases.
Prohibiting redemption of SNAP benefits at stores owned by SNAP households reduces opportunities for self-dealing and related-party fraud.
SNAP households who move or are temporarily out-of-state risk having benefits frozen after 60 days, creating a high risk of food insecurity for households that remain eligible but cannot quickly restore benefits.
The bill places an evidentiary burden on beneficiaries to prove in-state residency to restore benefits, potentially delaying access and raising due-process concerns.
Enforcement, investigation, and verification requirements increase administrative burden and costs for state SNAP offices and for retailers who must document household ownership relationships.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires suspension of SNAP/EBT accounts used exclusively out-of-state for >60 days and bars SNAP households that own food stores/wholesalers from redeeming benefits at their own businesses (with limited exceptions).
Official title: To amend the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, to limit the conditions applicable to the use of electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to purchase food, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 18, 2025 by David Rouzer · Last progress February 18, 2025
Requires states to suspend SNAP/EBT accounts when all transactions for a household occur entirely outside the issuing State for more than 60 days, and keeps accounts suspended until the household proves state residency or an investigation confirms it. Also bars households that include owners of approved retail food stores or wholesale food concerns from redeeming SNAP benefits at their own stores, except where the store is owned by a public corporation or a government. The law takes effect one year after enactment.