Written comments on two states’ SNAP food restrictions must reach USDA on or before October 15, 2026, and they go through two separate dockets. FNA-2026-0301 covers Idaho, which excludes soda and candy from SNAP purchases, and FNA-2026-0313 covers Utah, which excludes soft drinks. USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration published both notices in the Federal Register on September 15, 2026, months after each restriction took effect.
Two notices in one Federal Register issue
The September 15 notices appear in the same issue, Volume 91, No. 177. The Idaho notice is FR document 2026-18889, and the Utah notice is printed in the same file. The Idaho notice says the state asked to “amend the SNAP definition of food for purchase to exclude ‘soda’ and ‘candy.’” Idaho submitted that request on May 16, 2025, USDA approved it on June 10, 2025, and a September 4, 2025 request moved the start to February 15, 2026.
The Utah notice carries its own docket number, FNA-2026-0313, and the same deadline and submission route. USDA’s Utah page shows the approval, also dated June 10, 2025, and a January 1, 2026 effective date for a two-year project that excludes “soft drinks” from the definition of food. The page links back to docket FNA-2026-0313.
How comments reach USDA
Both notices direct commenters to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at regulations.gov, where the online instructions govern. The language is the same in each: written comments must be received on or before October 15, 2026. That is a receipt deadline, not a postmark date, and it is not a decision date.
Because the two dockets are separate proceedings, a comment filed under FNA-2026-0301 is about Idaho only, and one filed under FNA-2026-0313 is about Utah only. A household with a view on both states’ rules would need to file under each number. The Idaho notice adds that comments are subject to public disclosure, which means whatever a commenter submits can be seen by others. The notices’ instructions name no restricted class of commenters.
The contact in both notices is Shiela Corley, the acting Food and Nutrition Administration administrator, reachable at [email protected]. The subject line is “ID SNAP Demonstration Project” for Idaho and “UT SNAP Demonstration Project” for Utah.
What kind of project is up for comment
Both are demonstration projects under section 17(b) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, 7 U.S.C. 2026(b), which the notice describes as authority to “test changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that may increase programmatic efficiency and improve the delivery of SNAP benefits.” These are not national rule changes. Each covers one state’s definition of food, and the other approved states are not part of these dockets, as USDA’s waiver table lists them separately.
Idaho’s and Utah’s restrictions are already in force on that table, Utah since January 1, 2026 and Idaho since February 15, 2026. A comment filed now is therefore about a restriction that has been in effect since early 2026, not one that is yet to start.
The evaluation data USDA already collects
Each project runs for two years from its implementation date, and each comes with a reporting plan. For Utah, the state page says Create Better Health, Utah State University and the Utah Food Security Council collect quarterly evaluation data, and quotes the agency’s commitment to “carefully and comprehensively evaluating how waiving the state’s definition of food in this way impacts SNAP participants and retailers.” On Idaho’s page, the approval letter says the agency “will carefully review the results of the project, based on the evaluation data provided by the state.”
In both approval letters, then, the record USDA points to is state-supplied evaluation data on participants and retailers, and the comment dockets sit alongside that process rather than replacing it.
A comment window that opens after the start dates
The timing connects to a June 2026 court ruling. The law-firm analysis by Covington & Burling says the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that USDA also violated procedural rules at 7 C.F.R. 282.1(b) by not publishing required Federal Register notices 30 days before initiating projects with significant public impact. The court’s remedy, according to the firm, was vacating the affected waivers, and USDA’s table lists Colorado, Iowa, Tennessee and West Virginia as vacated. Idaho and Utah are not on that list.
The September notices do not say why they were published when they were, and the sources read for this piece do not connect them to the ruling. What the record shows is the sequence: Utah’s restriction began on January 1, Idaho’s on February 15, and the Federal Register notices followed on September 15 with a comment window that closes on October 15.
The household calendar behind the dockets
Dockets FNA-2026-0301 and FNA-2026-0313 concern Idaho’s and Utah’s demonstration projects, and the notices read for this piece mention no change to anyone’s own recertification or reporting dates. Those household deadlines run on a separate calendar from the October 15 comment cutoff.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes 51 state packs and a renewal and reporting calendar for tracking a household’s own SNAP dates.
Line up the Idaho and Utah state packs and the SNAP calendar in one place →
This piece was drafted with AI assistance; the docket numbers, dates and project terms were checked against the September 15, 2026 Federal Register notices and USDA’s state pages.
