Why It Matters

Congress is reshaping federal nutrition standards for school meals after more than a decade of low-fat-only rules. The law, enacted on January 14, represents a significant policy reversal with implications for how the Trump administration implements child nutrition programs and what schools must stock in their cafeterias.

P.L. 119-69 permits whole and reduced-fat (2%) fluid milk in federally funded school lunches and removes the tie between milk in the National School Lunch Program and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The updated 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend including full-fat dairy as part of a healthy diet, and the act passed the Senate by unanimous consent and the House by voice vote under suspension of the rules.

The Big Picture

The Department of Agriculture issued initial guidance on January 14, the same day the law took effect, directing regional and state nutrition directors to implement the new milk flexibilities immediately. The agency then published a final rule on May 8 that extended whole and 2% milk options to the School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and Special Milk Program for participants aged two and older, though it retained unflavored whole milk as the only option for one-year-olds.

Under the final rule, schools can exclude saturated fat in fluid milk from weekly average calculations, but milk still counts toward calorie, sodium, and added-sugar limits. The law also adds a new requirement: schools must provide annual food-allergy training for school food-service personnel in the lunch and breakfast programs, filling a gap in prior rules that did not mandate such training despite nearly 90 percent of public schools already having food-allergy accommodation policies as of 2014–2015.

P.L. 119-69 allows schools to offer nutritionally equivalent nondairy beverages to all students, but the final rule did not address those provisions; schools must provide milk substitutes for students with disabilities whose diets are restricted, and these disability-related substitutes do not have to align with federal nutrition standards.

The Bottom Line

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the law would cause no change in benefit costs and impose insignificant implementation costs.

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