AUGUSTA -- States will be able to more easily store and transport food to soup kitchens, food banks and shelters if Congress approves a measure introduced March 6 by U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe.

"Right now, there are families who are in desperate need of food assistance but cannot get it because the funding isn't in place to get the available resources to them," said Snowe, a Maine Republican.

Under Snowe's Bonus Emergency Food Assistance Program Act of 2008 proposal, new funding would be provided to states and food assistance agencies to help them pay the costs to store, transport and distribute additional food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The bill was co-introduced by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.

The federal Emergency Food Assistance Program provides food around the country to low-income people or families and individuals in emergencies. In Maine, the program distributes about 1 million pounds of government-purchased food a year, much of it frozen, and another 400,000 pounds donated by private entities.

About two-thirds of that food is stored and handed out to regional agencies from a state warehouse on Cony Road by Maine Emergency Food Assistance Program Director Randall Mraz and just one other employee. The remainder is warehoused by Good Shepherd Food-Bank in Auburn.

No direct handouts are handled from those warehouses.

Food from the program is distributed through 11 Community Action Programs, each with its own facilities to distribute the food to local charities.

The effort provides food for about 1.6 million visits by hungry Mainers and families to the food banks, soup kitchens and shelters that actually hand out the food, state agriculture officials said.

Under the federal program, state agencies are provided with both food and money to cover administrative costs such as storing and transporting food. But that sum does not cover the full cost of distribution and administration for the program, Mraz said.

"There is never enough money in the administrative funds," he said. "A lot of states, like Maine, have had to dip into the food budget because there's not enough in the transportation and storage funds."

When the program began in the mid-1990s, he said, charities were banned from giving out food to anyone with an income more than 50 percent higher than the federal poverty level.

Since then, however, an exception has been added that allows virtually anyone in an emergency to use the program.

"Basically anybody who shows up (at a local food pantry or shelter) is qualified," Mraz said. "We don't want to turn anybody away that's hungry."

The Augusta food program warehouse has been in operation since 2000 in a building the Maine Department of Agriculture has used for a variety of purposes over the years, he said.

Prior to that, he said, federal food assistance was less organized.

When the government had surplus food, they would engage the National Guard to distribute commodities such as peanut butter or cheese to town offices around the state for distribution.

That occurred at irregular intervals about every three or four months, and families that missed the distribution had no access to food until the next one, he said.

Though Snowe's office could not provide information about the amount of money being requested in her legislation, or how much might become available to Maine if it were enacted, the senator stressed the need for some kind of action.

"You can't do much when there's a shortage of food assistance," Snowe said. "But when the issue is getting them the food we have, that's something we can and should address immediately."

Gary Remal -- 621-5642

gremal@centralmaine.com