Abbott-backed Texas SNAP rule blocks soda, sugary drinks and candy purchases<\/a><\/p>\nFeeding Texas Virtual Media Briefing May 20, 2026<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re advocating for a realistic timeline to do so without jeopardizing food access to millions of children, seniors and working families or harming the state\u2019s food economy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Feeding Texas emphasized that SNAP payment error rates are not indicators of fraud. Instead, the rates measure how accurately benefits are calculated and include both overpayments and underpayments.<\/p>\n
The organization noted that SNAP fraud remains rare in Texas. Fewer than 0.1% of SNAP households were found to have committed an intentional program violation during fiscal year 2025, according to Feeding Texas.<\/p>\n
The organization also warned that food banks cannot make up for large-scale reductions in SNAP support. Texas food banks distribute more than 700 million pounds of food annually through more than 4,000 community partners, but Feeding Texas said SNAP provides nine meals for every one meal distributed by food banks.<\/p>\n
Cole called on Congress to delay implementation of the cost-sharing requirement by two years, similar to exemptions already granted to states including Alaska and Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnology upgrades, staff training and policy improvements do not happen overnight,\u201d Cole said. \u201cBut we\u2019re confident Texas can reduce its PER below the federal threshold with a realistic implementation timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kris Yagel, interim CEO of El Pasoans Fighting Hunger, said there is a lot of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
“There are changes happening, and what that translates to our level here, we are not exactly sure yet, so that\u2019s alarming. We have to keep doing what we are doing,” said Yagel. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur poverty rate is definitely higher. Food insecurity here is actually is at47% percent, so we\u2019re nearing having the region in food insecurity, it\u2019s twice the national average,\u201d said Yagel. <\/p>\n
Sign up<\/a> to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 Texas could face hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs under changes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-301945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}