Martin Heinrich Presses Secretary Brooks Rollins About Farmers Making 'Financial Decisions' On Now-Cancelled Contracts

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) spoke about the Trump administration canceling USDA contracts.

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00:00Thank you, Chairman. Secretary, the Iron Fire is currently burning in the Gila National Forest,

00:08and you and I have talked about the Silver City Dispatch Center, which is in charge of

00:12coordinating the response between air assets and frontline firefighters in the Southwest.

00:17It is still among the dispatch centers that DOGE is seeking to close, and in our conversations,

00:24you assured me that you would seek to keep this dispatch center open, that you would designate

00:30it mission critical. Talk to me about what you're doing to make good on that promise.

00:34Yeah, we have been in conversations with GSA on that, Senator, and certainly as we have many hands

00:42working across the Trump administration to deliver on our promise for a more effective and efficient

00:48government, we agree that this is important, and especially as wildfire season is heating up,

00:53ensuring that we are operationally ready at every turn in your state and in other states that are

00:59highly affected by that. So we remain focused on that, and if you hear something different,

01:03please call me. Let's return to something that you discussed with my colleague from Wisconsin,

01:11the local food purchasing assistance and local food for schools programs, in my view, are two of

01:18the best, and they may be COVID programs, but they're two of the best examples of using American

01:23grown produce to produce healthier outcomes in our students. To me, that is making America healthy

01:30again. You've canceled both of those contracts, even though those contracts were signed and farmers

01:38had bought supplies for planting based on those contracts. So what would you say to both the

01:44producers and the schools who made financial decisions based on those commitments?

01:49Well, I would love, Senator, the first thing I'll say is could you send me specific information on

01:54that? Because that would be really helpful. We've talked a lot in broad strokes, but if I can see the

01:58details. In New Mexico, you still have a million and a half dollars of the last tranche left out of six

02:05million. I can't speak to what the state is doing, and we'll be happy to run that to ground. But the

02:10people I'm hearing from are literally the schools and the producers who were impacted, the growers.

02:16Yeah, I would love to get more details on that and what that looks like. Again, as a COVID era

02:22program, the other side of this, and I want to make sure you've got plenty of time to ask your

02:25other questions, but the other side of this, as far as the local nutritious farms, et cetera, I mean,

02:30I think that's a massive push. I think it's important we remain prioritized on that. But again,

02:35the $400 million a day we spend at USDA on nutrition, just on nutrition, I believe sincerely that

02:42we'll be able to check a lot of those boxes without continuing a program that was supposed to end at the

02:47end of COVID and that, in fact, most states still have a lot of money left in the bank. They haven't

02:51been able to spend it. My colleague from Kansas mentioned Food for Peace and McGovern Dole.

03:01These programs have provided life-saving American-grown food to people around the world.

03:06I have literally met with mothers and children who relied on American food aid for their survival.

03:14I appreciate that you've had initial discussions with Secretary Rubio about these programs,

03:22but what I saw two weeks ago with several of my Republican colleagues on the ground at a refugee camp

03:28was kids who were on fractional rations who didn't have enough calories per day to thrive.

03:37So what are we doing to fill the gap between the historic commitment of those programs and whatever

03:45that replaces them in the meantime when the impact is kids who are not getting enough to eat?

03:55And you're talking specifically on the international programs. Yes, that's a great conversation. We

04:03continue to talk about it. The president has been very clear that we have to ensure that our kids

04:10here in America that are hungry, that we're serving, obviously, they are the priority. It doesn't mean

04:16that we don't care about or want to move out our American farmers' produce, and we should,

04:21and commodities across the world, but really focusing here in America first. But secondly,

04:25understanding how effective those programs are, which I talked a little bit about with the back

04:30and forth with Senator Baldwin, I think it may have been Senator Murray, but how important and

04:34effective those are, where we're spending the money, how it's being spent, and what that looks like.

04:39I think you'll get a lot of support from this committee to go after overhead, excess overhead.

04:45I think we have to check too many boxes, and there are a lot of entities that have gotten good at

04:52running those contracts because they can check those boxes. But what we saw on the ground was kids who had

05:01malaria and other diseases because they simply didn't have enough food to eat because commitments we made

05:08were not being made good on.

05:12Well, I would love more details on that. That would help me understand. And in fact, where it was y'all went, and then

05:19my commitment to you is to study that. And in my, you know, my heart is with what you're saying. But again, we

05:26putting America first, understanding how we're feeding our children, and we haven't had a MAHA discussion yet,

05:32but if we do, we can talk a little bit more about that, is important. But also understanding that, again,

05:37the mission and the intention of these programs are always good. It is how we are effectuating them

05:43and putting them into play and really looking at that closely.

05:47Thanks. Senator, I...

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