WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, delivered the following opening statement at the Agriculture Committee hearing titled: “Review of the USDA Reorganization Proposal.” Testifying at the hearing was USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden.
A rough transcript of Klobuchar’s full opening statement is available below and a video can be downloaded here.
Senator Klobuchar: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for working with me to hold this hearing at the last moment. And the reason it's short notice is because the Administration put out a half-baked plan with no notice and without consulting agricultural leaders.
As we start this discussion, let me be clear: I support efforts to make USDA work, but I don't think getting rid of 15,000 employees, which has already happened because of early buyouts, because of firing people, because of everything else that's happened, is good for agriculture. I don't think that these tariffs, which have dried up markets when our farmers and ranchers are already working on thin margins, have been good for Agriculture.
We have a half-baked agenda that will almost certainly result here in worse services for farmers and families in rural communities. Coordinated action and influence for rural America and agriculture does not mean just being close to where the producers are. That's true. We have that with Ag, we have 90% of the employees already out in the field. But what you guys are planning on doing or proposing to us is to take that other 10% and break them down and send them to five different hubs, including a state that I would say is not in the top 10 for Agriculture, not even close.
It also means having staff in a place if we want to do our jobs right, where they can meet with their peers in other agencies and interact with key stakeholder groups and members of Congress whittling down USDA resources to do this crucial work puts rural America at a disadvantage when they don't have people in the room where it happens. And we have differences across the aisle, but I think every one of my colleagues understands that you need people that can meet with you. You need people that can go over to the White House so that you don't have people that don't have the interests of rural America in mind making all the decisions.
I am extremely concerned about the harm that this reorganization will have on the USDA’s research. The previous relocation of the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture was nothing short of a disaster. A 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office, those reports are used by both Democrats and Republicans to make their points, underscores the threat that these short-sighted actions have on USDA stakeholders. GAO explicitly stated, based on this much smaller relocation, that ERS produced fewer key reports and that NIFA took longer to process grants because of relocation.
Why would we want that right now, when we've already lost 15,000 employees, when farmers are already suffering, and we have these tariffs walloping them? This means farmers didn't get timely economic information, and researchers were left waiting for critical research funding. This reorganization plan would create similar chaos, but on a much grander scale, which seems to be what this administration is repeatedly about.
Vacating long-standing research labs, including the very lab where USDA began work on sterilized flies to combat screw worms, and pushing researchers out of federal service will threaten the innovation that our farmers demand and need to combat animal and plant disease. Just this year, 1,600 employees have already left USDA research agencies. And you want to make it even smaller when we're trying to compete with other countries, when we know that so many of our human-based diseases actually start with animals all around the world, when we know that farming and ranching has been the jewel of America's economy.
I hope that today's discussion will shed light on the effects this proposal will have on USDA's ability to respond to wildfires, administer critical nutrition programs, protect civil rights, and meet the needs of our farmers.
And before I close, I want to point out that this reorganization plan, as I noted at the beginning, was developed without input of Congress or the very stakeholders USDA aims to serve. It is unacceptable that we learned about this proposal just minutes before it was announced. The first months of this Administration do not inspire confidence, given the months of freezes, cancellations, unfreezes, firings, hiring back, lease terminations, firings and subsequent attempts to rehire veterinarians, farm loan officers, and other critical positions. It has injected uncertainty at a time when USDA customers look for certainty and trust.
I did not vote for you, Mr. Deputy Secretary, but I did think that you would go in based on your experience and be able to do things that would actually help rural America. And I actually took you at your word when you had pledged to work with us on things that would help. That's not what happened here when we had absolutely no notice of what you were going to do.
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