The Trump administration is once again threatening to reduce federal food assistance funding to some left-leaning states — including Maine — as part of the latest salvo in a monthslong fight over access to personal data on food stamp recipients.
The dispute could cost Maine more than $13 million. And some state officials, including Gov. Janet Mills, have accused the Trump administration of harming hungry Americans for political purposes. As part of their data request, USDA officials have said they are looking to ensure SNAP benefits are not flowing to noncitizens.
But at least one member of Maine's congressional delegation, Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, is calling on the state to comply with the data demands as legal proceedings play out.
"Regarding these administrative funds, I expect any efforts to withhold them to be held up in court," Collins said in a statement. "In the meantime, I would also encourage the state to be transparent with the data the Administration has requested to prevent waste, fraud, or misuse of these taxpayer-funded benefits that help so many American families."
Twenty-one states plus the District of Columbia have been fighting the Trump administration over its directive that states share the names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers of all participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, since 2020. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey was part of the lawsuit filed in July.
The administration says the data is needed to root out fraud and waste in a program that helps feed roughly 42 million Americans, including 170,000 in Maine. But the states portray it as an illegal and unprecedented attempt to compile troves of sensitive information on millions of Americans.
In September, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from cutting off SNAP funds to the states as the court case played out. But during a cabinet meeting this week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the agency will soon begin withholding payments to noncompliant states.
"So as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us, and allow us to partner with them to root this fraud and protect the American taxpayer," Rollins said.
USDA officials later clarified that the agency would only withhold the federal portion of the costs to administer SNAP benefits. In Maine, that would equate to $13.3 million, according to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree blasted the Trump administration over the threat to withhold funding.
"I think it's outrageous that this administration continues to go after food for hungry people," Pingree, of Maine's 1st District, said in an interview. "We saw them do it during the shutdown when the (SNAP) money was there in the account and they refused to send it out, so the states fought it in the courts. Two weeks ago they said they were going to require everyone to reapply, which would have been an administrative nightmare and then they dropped that."
Roughly one in eight Maine residents receive food assistance through SNAP. The average SNAP benefit for a family of four in Maine is $572, according to DHHS.
It was unclear Wednesday how the Trump administration's latest demands — communicated in letters to Maine and other states last week — will be affected by the legal case still pending in federal court.
One concern cited by the states is how that data will be protected and used by the federal agency. In the letter to Maine Gov. Janet Mills, USDA officials pointed out that 28 other states have already shared the data on SNAP recipients under "data and security protocols."
"This set of protocols ... provides a higher level of security than that which states, including your state, historically have accepted in releasing similar data to [the USDA Food and Nutrition Service] — including Social Security numbers and addresses," Patrick Penn, acting administrator of the FNS, wrote to Mills.
But Mills' office indicated in a statement that her office will continue to resist the data request.
"The governor and attorney general will stand in the way of this cruel and callous attempt by President Trump to cause Maine people to go hungry," the governor's office said.
Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a statement that the office will "continue to work closely with our colleagues across the country to ensure continued access to SNAP benefits for Maine people."
