# 119-hr-9980: American Food for American Schools Act of 2026

119-hr-9980, American Food for American Schools Act of 2026, is a 119th Congress bill sponsored by Rep. Garamendi, John [D-CA-8] (D-CA); status introduced; PRIA reads it as touching household money (as of 2026-08-15).

- Canonical: https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-9980
- As of: 2026-08-15
- Plain-text twin of the page above; the HTML and this file carry the same facts.

## Facts
- Bill: 119-hr-9980
- Congress: 119
- Title: American Food for American Schools Act of 2026
- Status: introduced
- Introduced: 2026-07-30
- Sponsor: Rep. Garamendi, John [D-CA-8] (D-CA)
- Cosponsors: 2
- Policy area: Agriculture and Food
- Touches household money: yes
- Last recorded action: 2026-08-15

## Summary

**Stronger Buy American rules for school meals** is the main goal: this bill would tighten domestic sourcing across child nutrition programs and add new waiver, reporting, and enforcement steps to make U.S. ingredients the default. It would apply these requirements to school lunch, school breakfast, summer feeding, child and adult care food, special milk, and snack programs.

## Cosponsors (2)

- Rep. Gallagher, James [R-CA-1] (R-CA), 2026-07-30T00:00:00.000Z
- Rep. Thompson, Mike [D-CA-4] (D-CA), 2026-08-10T00:00:00.000Z

## Provisions PRIA read

- More Buy American training funding: benefit, low. If enacted, the bill would raise the training program cap from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 and reauthorize the program for 2026 through 2031. The extra funding would support Buy American procurement training for school food authorities and suppliers.
- New supplier penalties and contract rules: cost, medium. If enacted, all new contracts between schools and suppliers would have to include a Buy American compliance clause. Suppliers who use federal money to buy foreign products in violation of that clause would have to pay the Secretary an amount equal to the federal funds used. Schools could still use…
- Stricter Buy American rules for schools: mixed, high. If enacted, the bill would make school meal procurement stricter. It would require schools to purchase domestic products rather than only trying to do so "to the maximum extent practicable." It would define "domestic" to mean U.S.-grown commodities, foods processed in the U.S. with mostly U.S. ingr…
- Limits and public reporting on waivers: mixed, medium. If enacted, school food authorities would generally need to request a USDA waiver before buying foreign food, except when U.S. production or quality is insufficient or items are not reasonably available. Waivers could cover no more than 5 percent of an SFA's total annual commercial food costs for e…

## Related bills

- 119-hr-3151: SHIPS for America Act of 2025
- 119-hr-6900: American Affordability Act of 2025
- 119-hr-10421: Transforming Education for the Future Act
- 119-hr-7973: Momnibus Act
- 119-hr-7977: Energy Bills Relief Act
- 119-hr-4669: FEMA Act of 2025

## Sources
- [119-hr-9980 on Congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/9980)

## Related
- [119-hr-3151: SHIPS for America Act of 2025](https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-3151)
- [119-hr-6900: American Affordability Act of 2025](https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-6900)
- [119-hr-10421: Transforming Education for the Future Act](https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-10421)
- [119-hr-7973: Momnibus Act](https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-7973)
- [119-hr-7977: Energy Bills Relief Act](https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-7977)
- [119-hr-4669: FEMA Act of 2025](https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-4669)
- [All bills in Congress](https://policyrisk.com/legislation)

Source: PRIA, https://policyrisk.com/legislation/119-hr-9980 (as of 2026-08-15).