Federal District Court Judge George Hazel in Maryland ruled on Monday that the Department of Agriculture violated regulatory law when it decided in 2018 to reverse course on nutrition standards for meals in public schools. The 2018 rule, initiated by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, reneged on some of the more stringent nutrition standards the agency had adopted—measures widely publicized and advocated by Michelle Obama. The 2018 rollback violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), said Hazel, because it made a stark leap from the preliminary draft of the rule that was not a “logical outgrowth” from one step to the next.
This lack of logical flow, the judge found, occurred because when the government provided notice about its new rule, it said it planned to delay implementation of some of the guidelines that call for reduced sodium and increased whole grains in school meals, and to change some of the standards for granting exceptions. When the final rule was published, however, it was “not in character with the original scheme.” “[T]here is a fundamental difference between delaying compliance standards—which indicates that school meals will still eventually meet those standards—and eliminating those standards altogether,” wrote the judge. The 2018 rule purported to eliminate the Final Sodium Target from 2012 and to also do away with the ultimate goal of a 100 percent whole grain requirement.
The plaintiffs challenging the rule, led by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, had also argued that the Department of Agriculture lacked the statutory authority to rollback the nutrition standards, that it responded inadequately to comments, and that the decision was arbitrary and not backed up by sufficient reasoning. Hazel found these arguments unavailing, however, noting that the legislative guidance under which the agency formulates its standards provides for wide deference, and that the agency could do its homework to support its decision. What the government failed to do, however, was follow the law in providing notice about their plans by significantly changing course between iterations.
