NATSO Urges Congress to Prohibit State-Levied SNAP Processing Fees
NATSO joined with organizations representing more than 250,000 retailers in calling on Congress to prohibit processing fees from being levied for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) electronic benefit transfer (EBT) transactions.
In a letter sent to the Chairman and Ranking Members of the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees, NATSO urged lawmakers to enact the bipartisan “Ensuring Fee-Free Benefit Transactions (EBT) Act (H.R. 4158)” either in a multi-year Farm Bill or other legislative vehicle.
The EBT Act would permanently prohibit states and state contractors from levying processing fees from a state’s side of a SNAP EBT transaction onto SNAP authorized retailers and their merchant processors. SNAP EBT is not a commercial payments system like the credit and debit card markets and should never be treated as such.
The letter was signed by over 1,000 food retailers of all sizes serving millions of SNAP participants, as well as state, regional and national associations representing tens of thousands of SNAP authorized retailers across the country.
The 2018 Farm Bill included a 5-year moratorium to prohibit states and state contractors from levying state-side processing and other related fees on SNAP authorized retailers for SNAP EBT transactions. This moratorium remains in place only as long as Congress extends the 2018 Farm Bill authorization. H.R. 4158 would make the 2018 provision permanent.
Subscribe to Updates
The NATSO Foundation and NATSO provide a breadth of information created to strengthen travel plazas’ ability to meet the needs of the traveling public in an age of disruption. This includes knowledge filled blog posts, articles and publications. If you would like to receive a digest of blog post and articles directly in your inbox, please provide your name, email and the frequency of the updates you want to receive the email digest.
