During remarks on the House floor, Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) spoke about emergency food aid funding that has been cut by the Trump Administration.
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00:00Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about a matter of life or death for millions of children around the world.
00:11Malnutrition is the leading cause of death for children under five globally.
00:17When children starve, their bodies break down their own muscles, bones, and organs to survive.
00:23Their immune systems collapse, leaving them defenseless to disease.
00:28If you go into a clinic where children are suffering from malnutrition, you won't hear them crying because they don't have the strength.
00:36The silence is all you will hear.
00:39When it comes to nutrition, the first 1,000 days of a child's life are critical for development for the rest of their lives.
00:46But there is a miracle treatment that can save the lives of malnourished children even in the most remote corners of the world.
00:54Ready-to-use Therapeutic Food, or RUTF, a nutrient-packed peanut butter paste.
01:01Also known as Plumpy Nut, RUTF delivers the fat, sugar, and protein that children with malnutrition need to survive and grow.
01:10It requires no refrigeration. And kids show improvement and are saved within weeks.
01:16Adesia Nutrition, based in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, is one of the two organizations in the United States that manufactures Plumpy Nut.
01:25From their factory in North Kingstown, they produced over 88 million pounds of Plumpy Nut each year.
01:31This work saved more than 25 million lives across 65 countries, including 5 million lives last year.
01:40They, along with another organization, MANA, based in Georgia, have been doing life-saving work.
01:47But this work has been largely halted because the Trump administration has frozen new orders for RUTF, grinding production nearly to a halt.
01:59This is despite Secretary Rubio and Elon Musk promising publicly that emergency food aid would be continued.
02:07That has not been the case so far. And relief for starving children is now uncertain.
02:13USAID's Office for Food and Peace has funded the manufacture and distribution of this food relief to the developing world for decades.
02:21But with the closure of USAID, and despite the assurances of Secretary Rubio and other administration officials,
02:28no new orders have been submitted for the next fiscal year.
02:32As a result, Adesia, the factory in my district, has had to lay off staff.
02:36Leaving production of Plumpy Nut slowed nearly to a halt.
02:41Shipments meant for starving children have been stranded in warehouses.
02:45There are boxes of this stuff sitting in warehouses right now with no place to go.
02:50Every hour of missed production means 415 starving children not getting the food they need to survive.
02:59If we allow Adesia and MANA's mission to fail, it will be a moral failure on our part.
03:05So I urge the administration and my colleagues, do the right thing.
03:09Restore the funding for emergency food aid.
03:11Keep America's promise to the world's most vulnerable children.
03:15We do not have another day to waste. This is a moment of urgency.
03:19That is why starting today, I will take to the floor of the House every single day to call to anybody in this city who will listen.
03:28Asking, please restore federal funding for emergency food aid.
03:34We do not have the ability to filibuster in the House like they do in the Senate.
03:37But I do have the right and the ability to stand in this chamber every day for at least a couple of minutes to call attention to this urgent issue.
03:46And that is exactly what I intend to do until this funding is restored.
03:52I yield back.