More than a dozen years after higher-fat milk was stripped from school meals to slow obesity in American kids and boost their health, momentum is growing to put it back.

Federal lawmakers have revived bills that would allow whole and 2% milk to be served again in schools, in addition to the skim and low-fat milk mandated since 2012. A U.S. Senate committee hosted a hearing Tuesday on a bill that has bipartisan support.

“Kids need wholesome, nourishing food to grow strong and stay healthy, and whole milk is packed with the nutrients they need,” said Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is co-sponsoring the legislation.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called the federal dietary guidelines requiring low-fat milk “antiquated” and last month encouraged “full fat/whole milk” to be used in Head Start programs for the nation’s youngest children.

The Obama-era move to require skim and low fat milk in schools was aimed at cutting kids’ consumption of saturated fat and calories, which can increase the risk of heart disease and obesity.

But some nutrition experts, lawmakers and the dairy industry argue that whole milk has been unfairly vilified, and that some studies suggest kids who drink whole milk are less likely to have obesity. Critics also contend that many children don’t like the taste of lower-fat milk and don’t drink it, leading them to miss valuable nutrients.

Here’s what you need to know about the debate over whole milk in school meals:

Why was whole milk removed from school meals?

In 2010, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which aimed to reduce childhood obesity and cut health risks for kids. It required school meals to include more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, protein and low-fat dairy and less sugar, sodium and fat.

Starting in 2012, whole and 2% milk was not permitted in school meals because those products are higher in saturated fat and calories than lower-fat options.

Nutrition experts said that skim and low-fat milk gave kids the benefits of necessary nutrients like calcium and Vitamin D with less fat and fewer calories.

How are school meal guidelines set?

The U.S. Agriculture Department sets nutrition guidelines for the national school lunch and breakfast programs, which serve nearly 30 million students each school day.

The nutrition standards are required to meet the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are reviewed and revised every five years. Since 1985, those guidelines have recommended that Americans older than age 2 consume low-fat or fat-free dairy.

The 2025-2030 dietary guidelines are set for revision this year under a joint effort by USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services. A panel of scientific experts who reviewed evidence regarding milk fat content recommended that the U.S. policy remain the same.

One reason was that research has shown changes in the federal nutrition program after the 2010 law have slowed the rise in obesity among U.S. kids — even teenagers, said Deanna Hoelscher, a nutrition expert and researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center who served on the dietary guidelines committee.

“We didn’t find enough definitive evidence to change a policy that’s been in place that has shown good outcomes to date,” Hoelscher said.

Although there was limited evidence that consuming higher-fat dairy rather than lower-fat dairy could benefit very young children, there wasn’t enough evidence to make a conclusion for older kids and teens, she said. There were “substantial concerns” with the consistency, quantity and risk of bias in the existing research, the report concluded.

What’s behind the push for whole milk in schools?

Some nutrition experts point to recent research suggesting that kids who drink whole milk could be less likely to be overweight or develop obesity than children who drink lower-fat milk. One 2020 review of 28 studies suggested that the risk was 40% less for kids who drank whole milk rather than reduced-fat milk, although the study authors noted that the research couldn’t say whether milk consumption was the reason.

One top nutrition expert, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of Tufts University, noted that the dietary guidelines panel found “no evidence that whole fat dairy is worse than low-fat dairy,” but they retained the recommendations, citing the need for more research.

“Saturated fat in dairy has not been linked to any adverse health outcomes,” Mozaffarian said.

The pending bills in Congress stipulate that milk fat would not be considered as part of the saturated fat limits required in school meals. That’s because the saturated fatty acids in dairy have a different composition than beef fat, Mozaffarian said, adding that dairy has other beneficial compounds that could offset theoretical harms.

In addition, Mozaffarian noted current USDA guidelines ban whole milk but allow skim and low-fat chocolate and other flavored milk sweetened with added sugars. Last year, the USDA agreed to limit added sugars in school foods for the first time.

Dairy industry advocates say participation in school meals programs and consumption of milk have declined since whole milk was removed.

What’s next?

The USDA and HHS must issue the new dietary guidelines this year. Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have said they are conducting “a line-by-line review” of the scientific report issued under the previous administration — but whether that means a new acceptance of whole milk remains unclear.

Versions of the “Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act” are pending in both chambers of Congress.

Whoever ends up in the White House after next week’s presidential election will face a suite of crises related to the unchecked production of plastics: toxic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing facilities, chemicals leaching from the 20 million metric tons of plastic that wind up in the environment every year, and microplastic contamination throughout people’s bodies, just to name a few.

Thankfully, there are a number of ways the next chief executive could address the problem. Ahead of the election, the nonprofit Beyond Plastics has released a list of 27 priorities for the next presidential administration — a sort of wish list of ways to significantly reduce the production, use, and disposal of plastics “for the sake of public health and the environment.” It builds on previous demands for a “Plastic-Free President” put together by a coalition of environmental groups just before President Joe Biden assumed office.

“For whoever is elected president, I think we’re at a key moment” to tackle the plastics crisis, said Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics’ president and a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

According to Enck, the most important thing the world can do to mitigate plastic’s harms is to stop making so much of it in the first place. Of the 420 million metric tons of plastic produced globally every year, only 9 percent gets recycled — the rest is sent to landfills or incinerators, or becomes litter in the environment. The U.S. president can’t solve the problem on their own, but they can support reduced plastic production as part of the global plastics treaty being negotiated by the United Nations. Those negotiations have been ongoing since 2022 and were originally scheduled to conclude by the end of this year, but Enck suspects they’ll be extended into 2025. If that’s the case, the next president will have an opportunity to add specificity to the Biden administration’s commitment — announced in mid-August — to support limits on plastic production and the use of hazardous chemical additives in the pact.

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Plastic litter on a public beach. Getty Images

If the treaty is eventually ratified by Congress — perhaps a tall order, given the Senate’s tendency to reject international agreements — then it’ll become legally binding, and the executive branch will have to work with lawmakers to implement it. Depending on what’s in the final text of the pact, this could involve passing a national packaging reduction law, a bill to incentivize the reclamation and recycling of plastic bottles, or a policy requiring new washing machines to come with filters to prevent plastic microfibers from escaping into waterways. Of course, the White House and Congress could still pursue these policies if the U.S. isn’t a party to the global plastics treaty. Many of them are already included in some form as part of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, a Democratic bill that was introduced for the third time during this year’s legislative session.

Independent of the treaty and congressional considerations, there are many other actions the next president could take to address the plastics crisis.

Beyond Plastics calls for the next presidential administration to issue a moratorium on new or renewed permits for petroleum refining and plastics manufacturing plants, as well as facilities dedicated to “chemical recycling” — a term for processes that supposedly use heat and pressure to reconstitute low-quality plastics into new products but that have largely failed to deliver on that promise. These restrictions could advance environmental justice, since petrochemical and chemical recycling facilities are often located in low-income communities that bear the brunt of associated air and water pollution.

The next president could also issue an executive order for federal agencies to phase out certain types of financial aid to the petrochemical industry — like Energy Department grants for research on chemical recycling and federal loan guarantees for plastic incineration facilities. Federal agencies can also ensure that plastic companies actually pay up when entering into settlement agreements related to the pollution they’ve caused, and that they don’t deduct these payments from their taxes. Enck suggested that government funding be redirected to building out reuse infrastructure: things like water stations, dishwashing equipment in public schools, and commercial bottle washing operations for breweries and wineries.

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The next presidential administration could direct executive agencies like the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to pursue additional interventions. The former could launch investigations into the plastics industry for contributing to marine and terrestrial pollution, and for falsely advertising plastics’ recyclability — as some state attorneys general have already done. The latter could strengthen its guidelines on plastic-related sustainability claims through a document called the Green Guides, and it could bring enforcement actions against companies that use the “chasing arrows” recycling symbol on non-recyclable plastic products.

A trash can in Los Angeles overflows with plastic trash. Mario Tama / Getty Images

“We need our leaders to guard against industry’s false solutions, including against plastic recycling,” said Erica Cirino, communications manager for the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition, which was not involved in Beyond Plastics’ list of priorities.

Beyond Plastics also calls for the next administration’s Labor Department to create a “just transition” plan for petrochemical industry workers affected by plastic-reduction measures; for the National Institute of Health to fund studies on the health impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics, the tiny fragments that shear off of larger plastic items over time; and for the General Services Administration to prioritize reusable or refillable options in all federally funded buildings and institutions. That last action item would build on a commitment unveiled by the Biden administration in July to cease federal procurement of single-use plastics from all federal operations by 2035.

The list of regulatory possibilities is so long that some experts argue there’s a need for a “plastics czar,” akin to the role of climate czar that has been played by John Podesta, John Kerry, and Gina McCarthy. “Because of the scope and the breadth of the plastic issue across its life cycle, all agencies have a role to play,” said Rachel Karasik, a plastics research scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, which focuses on a range of water-related issues, including plastic pollution. “A plastics czar could help mobilize and coordinate that in a really meaningful way.”

Enck said she’s “hot and cold” on the title “czar,” but agreed that it would be helpful to have a top-level White House representative on plastics to provide leadership. She also said it will be important for the next administration to ensure various bodies, including the Council on Environmental Quality, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy, are led by staff who are well-informed on plastics.

Plastics industry groups don’t have their own bullet-point list of priorities for the next presidential administration. But if they did, it would likely be in direct opposition to much of what Beyond Plastics is calling for. The American Chemistry Council has previously called on the White House to support increased plastic production in order to meet “sustainable development and climate change goals.” (Plastics are used in renewable energy technologies and to “deliver clean drinking water,” the industry group said in an April press release.)

A public fountain for refillable bottles in Hudson River Park, New York City. Deb Cohn-Orbach / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The American Chemistry Council and other lobbying groups also oppose restrictions on plastic-related chemicals, chemical recycling, and government procurement of single-use plastics, as well as updates to the Green Guides to make it harder to advertise products as recyclable. They’ve come out against proposed legislation to ban plastic foam and stop companies from releasing pre-production plastic pellets into waterways. Instead, the industry favors policies that promote plastics recycling, including loosened federal air pollution regulations for chemical recycling facilities and the legitimation of a deceptive way of calculating recycled content known as “mass balance.” Several of these priorities are outlined in a bipartisan federal recycling bill introduced last month. The bill is widely supported by pro-plastic lobbyists.

If former President Donald Trump assumes the White House next year, advocates worry that he would implement some of those wish-list items from the federal recycling bill, since they don’t all require congressional approval. During his previous term, he took credit for the opening of a new petrochemical facility in Pennsylvania and derided bans on single-use plastics. And according to a former Trump White House official who spoke to Politico in April, Trump would also take a “hard-nosed look” at any outcome of the plastic treaty negotiations and potentially reject it.

“If Trump wins and it’s a good treaty, he’ll just pull us out the way that happened with the Paris accords,” Enck said, referring to the United Nations’ 2015 agreement to tackle global warming.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins, environmental advocates predict she will continue many of the Biden administration’s efforts to address the plastics crisis, like supporting production limits as part of the U.N. plastics treaty and phasing out single-use plastic items from federal operations. Enck said Harris is likely to retain current heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, and the General Services Administration — plus other agencies — who are more likely to support environmental priorities than potential Trump appointees.