A civil case captioned Nieves Aragon et al. v. Brooke Rollins now carries two filings that explain the state of the SNAP soda and candy restrictions: a June 22, 2026 order from a federal district court in Washington that threw out five states’ waivers, and an August 20 notice that the Justice Department, on USDA’s behalf, is taking that order to the D.C. Circuit. The first filing is a result. The second is a request for a different result that has not been granted, and the restrictions remain blocked in the meantime.
The June 22 order in Aragon v. Rollins, No. 1:26-cv-00861
USDA’s own food restriction waiver page, which the agency’s Food and Nutrition Service updated on October 2, 2026, records the order in plain terms. On June 22, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in Aragon et al. v. Rollins et al., 1:26-cv-00861, “ordered that FNA’s approval of the waiver be vacated and that the waiver’s implementation may not proceed.” The same sentence appears in the entries for each affected state.
Vacatur is a stronger remedy than an injunction against one program. The court did not merely pause enforcement; it set aside the agency’s approval of each waiver and sent the matter back to USDA. A law firm summary of the ruling published by Covington & Burling reports that the court found USDA lacked authority under 7 U.S.C. 2026(b), and that the agency also failed to publish the Federal Register notices that 7 C.F.R. 282.1(b) requires.
The judge was Amy Berman Jackson, according to a September report from the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture on the appeal and the National Agricultural Law Center’s analysis. That report quotes her opinion: “The secretary purports to waive not just a mere administrative or technical obstacle, but the very definition of ‘food’ as it was laid down by Congress.”
Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia
Five states had their waivers vacated: Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia. USDA’s main waiver page carries the vacatur language for Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee and West Virginia. Nebraska’s own USDA page, updated September 18, 2026, carries the identical sentence, so all five are confirmed by the agency, not only by outside summaries.
The waivers differed in scope. USDA’s table describes Iowa’s restriction as covering all taxable food items with exceptions, while Nebraska’s targeted soda, soft drinks and energy drinks, with candy added in a separate approval. What the five share is the legal defect the court identified: Congress wrote the statutory definition of food, and the court held that a waiver cannot rewrite it.
What the August 20 notice of appeal does, and what it does not
The notice of appeal, a copy of which the National Agricultural Law Center has posted, shows defendants in the case appealing the court’s “Memorandum Opinion and Order dated June 22, 2026,” a summary judgment decision recorded at ECF Nos. 36 and 37, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It was signed by Eitan R. Sirkovich, a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch, and carries the date August 20, 2026.
A notice of appeal starts the appellate process; it does not suspend the order being appealed. The trade outlet Feedstuffs, quoting the National Agricultural Law Center, put it this way: “Filing the appeal does not reinstate the five programs, which remain blocked unless the ruling is stayed or reversed.” None of the sources read for this article reports that a stay has been requested or granted, and none reports a briefing schedule or an argument date. USDA’s October 2 page still shows the vacated waivers as vacated.
Where USDA’s own pages part ways on Nebraska
One wrinkle shows how little the agency’s public pages have caught up with the court. The summary table on USDA’s main waiver page lists Nebraska with a December 1, 2026 start date and a phased schedule, and shows the other four vacated states as on hold since June 22. Yet the Nebraska page itself, updated two weeks earlier, states that the court vacated FNA’s approval and that implementation may not proceed.
The two pages cannot both describe what a Nebraska SNAP household will encounter at the register. The court order and the Nebraska page agree with each other, and the notice of appeal targets that order without staying it. Anyone relying on a single line in the summary table could draw the wrong conclusion.
Eighteen other states are outside the case
The ruling reaches five states, not every state with a restriction. According to the Feedstuffs report, SNAP waivers in 18 other states continue in effect, out of more than 20 that USDA has granted since January 2025. Those states were not parties to the vacated approvals, and the order does not undo them, although the National Agricultural Law Center’s Emily Stone has said the case may not stay confined.
“The success of this challenge might provide a roadmap for other state waivers to be challenged,” Stone is quoted as saying in the University of Arkansas summary. Stone’s point is about the reasoning rather than the five names: the holding that USDA cannot waive the statutory definition of food applies to any waiver built on the same theory. A separate set of dates governs the restrictions that remain in force elsewhere, and those belong to a different story from this one.
What the D.C. Circuit can decide
Three outcomes are open on the appeal. The appeals court can affirm the district court and leave the vacatur in place, reverse it and let USDA’s approvals stand, or send the case back for further proceedings. Until a panel rules, or until the district court or the D.C. Circuit grants a stay, the legal posture of the five states is fixed: the waivers are vacated, USDA has appealed, and nothing in the record read for this article restores them.
The ruling and the appeal are both matters of public record. The court’s reasoning is in the memorandum opinion, the appeal is in the August 20 notice, and the agency’s current view of each state is on its Food and Nutrition Service waiver pages, which are the place to look for the next change.
The record to watch from here
The next filing that matters is a motion to stay the vacatur, if USDA files one, or the D.C. Circuit’s briefing order. Either would appear on the case docket under No. 1:26-cv-00861 at the district court and under a new appellate number at the D.C. Circuit. The agency’s pages are the other marker: a change to the status column for any of the five states would signal that the legal posture has moved, and the Food and Nutrition Service dates each page update at the bottom.
Purchase rules change; certification paperwork does not
The Aragon ruling changes what the five states’ SNAP households can buy and says nothing about their recertification dates, reporting duties or documents. Those deadlines keep running on a state-by-state schedule while the waiver fight moves through the D.C. Circuit.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes a renewal document checklist and a renewal and reporting calendar, along with 51 state packs for tracking each household’s own dates.
Open The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer to sort the recertification dates →
This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the court details were checked against USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service waiver pages and the filed notice of appeal.
