During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) questioned Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
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00:00The gentlelady from Maine, who probably has a different opinion on blueberries from Washington than the gentleman from Washington.
00:09Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for understanding the supremacy of Maine blueberries,
00:15which I've proven to the committee many times.
00:18If you're around, I bring in blueberry pies every year to the appropriate committee so that they can taste the qualitative difference in our blueberries.
00:25I love it. I love it.
00:26Secretary Rollins, thank you so much for being with us here today.
00:29I appreciate your time.
00:31I had a chance to watch the Senate hearing yesterday online and was very pleased to hear your exchange with Senator Collins about the PFAS issue.
00:38I hope you will bring your mother to visit us.
00:40I'm excited to hear she's a Texas legislator who came because of PFAS.
00:46So I know we'll be talking about that much more, but thank you for that.
00:49Thank you also during that committee for hearing your commitment to staying in touch with us.
00:54You have to understand that one of the big challenges for us in this unconventional cutting phase of this administration is cuts have been made through the doge, not through the USDA.
01:02We normally would have rescissions or rifts, so we would have far more information to deal with.
01:07That's why many of the questions are before you today.
01:09So I hope you will keep up that commitment to stay in touch with the House as well as the Senate.
01:13Those are very important conversations that we have with you.
01:17I also noticed that many of my colleagues talked about the LFPA program, and I just want to clear up a few of my concerns.
01:24I'm really devastated to see this program be cut.
01:26That was such an important way to get more healthy fruits and vegetables into our school lunch and to our feeding programs for people in our food banks.
01:36My understanding, one of the arguments that you made is it's a COVID era program.
01:40I was there when we put together this program.
01:42Well, that was because we had empty shelves and problems with our supply chain.
01:46It really, the COVID taught us you can't depend on international and national travel that you need to buy more locally.
01:53So this was an important program to turn to our local farmers and how we would change some of the ways to support small to medium-sized farmers, which I've heard you commit to.
02:02The fact is, in our state, we don't have a lot of money sitting around.
02:05Of the $2.6 million, we only have $164,000.
02:08So saying that this money is sitting around, I don't know what's wrong with the other states.
02:12For some of them, I think it's the reimbursement process.
02:14It takes many months to get the invoices out there.
02:17Also, it takes a while to develop these relationships with farmers.
02:20But now that they have them, we're going to lose them when you cut down this program.
02:24It's CCC funding.
02:25I know that's often controversial.
02:27But I am worried that you're taking back the CCC money because there's only less than $5 billion in there.
02:32And last time, Trump had to pay out $29 billion, President Trump did, on the tariffs.
02:37So those tariffs are costly.
02:39And I don't want to see this money just going to pay off bad tariffs.
02:43I'm excited to hear you've got some good information coming on that.
02:46But I want to clear up any misconceptions there.
02:49Farmers are mad that their contracts were cut.
02:52We had our first tractor rally in the state capitol in Maine.
02:56And farmers were showing up because they weren't getting their REAP grants.
03:01They weren't getting their CRIP grants.
03:02But they were mad about those broken contracts.
03:04And our state is worried about losing those relationships.
03:07So just want to clear that up.
03:08Also, with the RCPP program, I know you're working to get that money out.
03:12And I heard you say to Jean Shaheen yesterday, you're going to check on one of her programs.
03:15I got $15.5 million out to our wild blueberry growers for the impacts of climate change.
03:21We can pretend it's not real, but we have extreme drought in our state.
03:24And that money is going 75% to farmers, 25% to engineers.
03:28So if you could check on that.
03:30What was the name of it again?
03:31It's the RCPP grant for Maine wild blueberries, $15.5 million.
03:36And happy to send a pie so you know how delicious those blueberries are.
03:40That might be necessary.
03:42Staffing cuts.
03:42I'm sorry I'm talking so fast, but I have so much to say.
03:45We are very worried about our local offices.
03:47I know that people, you say staffing cuts were voluntary.
03:52Well, we got rid of all the probationary employees.
03:55Then we were told there was going to be administrative review.
03:58Some of them would come back.
03:59Some of them didn't.
04:00Let's face it.
04:00A lot of people were out of work.
04:02They weren't sure what was going to happen.
04:03And they took the deferred resignation.
04:06And we lost, I think, four engineers in that process because we paid no attention to what their job was in the first round of those layoffs.
04:13And many of those people didn't come back.
04:17So now we have severe staffing losses at those offices, and it's critically important.
04:23I am going to run out of time, but I just want to say most of this has been about the challenges we're already facing.
04:29Normally, this would be a hearing about the budget, about the skinny budget, which isn't enough, but what the problems are that we see going on in the future.
04:36And I just want to say one of the real concerns for me is that you've eliminated so much in rural development on housing, single-family direct housing loans, self-help housing grants, rural housing vouchers, rural business programs, which aren't housing but could have a ripple effect.
04:51I'm just saying those are severe cuts.
04:53Now, you say they're duplicative, too small, but I think those are going to have a huge impact, especially if this administration cuts HUD.
05:00I also just want to quickly say you have committed to saying that you believe in buying from local farmers, that enhancing our local economy, healthy fruits and vegetables is a big part of Maha.
05:11So if you go ahead with these Maha boxes, which are also in the plan, I want to know if you'll commit to making sure that we buy locally, that we put fresh and healthy food in there.
05:22You said our food banks don't give people healthy food.
05:24That's in the justification of that.
05:26But the fact is you're taking away the program that allowed them to give fresh, healthy food.
05:30I am so excited about the Maha box opportunity.
05:34And without being the person packing the box, it's hard to say exactly what to commit to.
05:38But believe me, I will insure and do everything I can to make sure those boxes are sourced locally, that they're nutrient-dense foods, and that we're doing everything that we can to help those with the least among us, frankly.
05:50Great.
05:50If you commit to that, we'll be anxious to work with you.
05:52I'm sorry for going over, Mr. Chair.
05:53I tried to talk as fast.
05:54And I have so many answers, but I can't answer them.
05:59But I would love to continue the conversation.
06:00And that is true for everybody anytime.
06:03We would appreciate following you.
06:04Yeah, thank you.
06:04Mr. Moulinard.
06:05All right.
06:06Thank you, Mr. Moulinard.
06:06Thank you, Mr. Moulinard.