The restrictions on what can be purchased with an EBT card now have an open front in the courts. A group of five SNAP recipients filed a federal lawsuit in Washington D.C. against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), arguing that the waivers granted to more than 22 states to ban the purchase of soda, candy, and other products with food assistance benefits are unlawful and cause real harm to people who depend on the program. If the lawsuit succeeds, it could strike down all SNAP product restrictions currently in force across the country in one blow.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and asks the judge to immediately suspend the USDA waivers and subsequently overturn them entirely. The plaintiffs are SNAP recipients in states including Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia, where restrictions are already in effect and directly affect their ability to shop for groceries with their benefits.
The legal argument: the USDA has overstepped its authority
The core of the lawsuit is that the USDA has no legal authority to grant this type of waiver to states. The federal law governing SNAP sets out precisely which foods are eligible, and that list cannot be changed through simple administrative authorizations — it would require a legislative change approved by Congress.
The plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has tried to circumvent the limits set by Congress by empowering states to restrict SNAP access in ways that Congress itself repeatedly declined to authorize. As the lead attorney stated in a public release: «The USDA is attempting to bypass those strict guardrails by empowering states to curtail access to SNAP in ways that will create significant hardship on recipients and retailers. We urge the Court to halt this attack on SNAP.»
Organizations such as the National Grocers Association (NGA) have also joined the criticism, though from the perspective of retailers. The NGA warned that the restrictions have introduced «significant new challenges for independent grocers» serving low-income communities, who must now identify, track, and enforce different restrictions across tens of thousands of products depending on the state — absorbing significant implementation costs in the process.
In-store confusion: another argument in the lawsuit
Beyond the legal argument, the lawsuit also points to the chaos the restrictions are generating in practice. Recipients are finding that a product they could buy last month is now declined at the terminal with no clear explanation. Retailers, meanwhile, face contradictory definitions that vary by state — what counts as a «restricted soda» in Texas does not match exactly what is banned in Florida or Colorado — leading to errors, returns, and checkout friction that affects all customers.
One of the most frequently cited examples involves sports drinks, which are permitted in some states and banned in others depending on their exact sugar or caffeine content. The same bottle can be EBT-eligible at a supermarket checkout in one state and declined just a few miles away across the border in another.
What could happen next
The USDA responded briefly, saying it would «not comment on pending litigation.» The court must first decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction suspending the waivers while the merits of the case are resolved. If the judge grants it, restrictions in the 22 states could be temporarily frozen until a final ruling is issued.
The outcome of this lawsuit will have enormous consequences. If the courts side with the plaintiffs, the USDA would lose the ability to grant this type of waiver without legislative backing — which could abruptly halt the expansion of restrictions to new states. For the millions of SNAP recipients already living under these rules or soon to face them, following this legal process is just as important as tracking any legislative change in Congress.