Republicans are defending recent legislation aimed at incentivizing states to fight erroneous payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — but Democrats are picking a fight over a last-minute change they argue encourages states to have higher error rates.

Legislation passed out of the GOP-led Congress on Thursday that could see some states pay a share of benefit costs for SNAP, also known as the food stamps program, for the first time.

The federal government currently covers the cost of benefits, but under the plan that’s been tossed around by congressional Republicans over the past few months, some states would have to cover anywhere between 5 percent and 15 percent of the benefits costs if they have a payment error rate above 6 percent — which factors in over-and-underpayments.

However, changes were made to the text that allowed delayed implementation for the cost-share requirements for states with the highest error rates shortly before its passage in the Senate this week. GOP leadership sought to lock down support from Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, whose state had the highest payment error rate in the country in fiscal year 2024.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Republicans made the change to comply with chamber rules.

“You have to give those states time to adjust because about all they're going to do is get down to that midrange, and then they’re still going to have to pay a penalty because they’re so high,” he said. “So, it’s about giving states a fair chance to adjust.”

Under the plan that was greenlit by Congress on Thursday, some states would begin contributing a share of benefit costs in fiscal year 2028, depending on their payment error rate. But the plan also allows for delayed implementation for two years for states with payment error rates if they reach around 13.34 percent or higher — an effort Republicans say is aimed at providing states like Alaska with much higher rates to bring them down.

Hoeven said the GOP-led agriculture committee, which crafted the SNAP pitch, “came up with a lot of proposals” trying to comply with restrictive rules governing a special process that Republicans used to approve the plan in the upper chamber without Democratic........

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