00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Vaden, I won't repeat except to say that I share the bipartisan concerns that have been raised about the creation of this plan without input from impacted entities or the Congress, but one of the chief messages of USDA proposing this is centered around making USDA offices and services moving closer to American farmers.
00:28I know this won't surprise you, but California is the number one ag-producing state in the Union, and yet the proposed hub in place of USDA headquarters will be located in Salt Lake City, which is more than 500 miles from the Central Valley, and my understanding is that none of the other five top ag-producing states will enjoy the presence of one of these regional hubs.
00:51So my question is, why wasn't a hub place closer to the largest ag-producing state or, frankly, any of the other top five agriculture-producing states? Why weren't those selected as venues?
01:04Fair question, Senator. First, I want to note just a simple geographic fact.
01:09While there are no hub locations in California itself, nearly all of our hub locations are closer to California than everybody being in Washington, D.C.
01:20With regard to your point about why California doesn't have a hub location, the simple answer is cost of living.
01:27We were looking at the cost of living for reasons that I noted. We want people to join USDA to build a career, to be able to purchase a home. The hub locations we chose, Salt Lake City being among, believe it or not, the cheapest cost of living on the list, allow that opportunity.
01:45Unfortunately, unfortunately, it's more difficult to do that in California with the price of housing.
01:49Well, there's going to be a huge cost to the relocation of all of these staff, indeed, if staff choose to relocate.
01:57In 2019, half of the staff at the two agencies that were part of the then-reorganization plan did not relocate.
02:07The GAO, in addition to the point that Senator Warnock made, also found that there was a tremendous loss of expertise in that relocation, and that the new hires were very junior and lacked the kind of experience that was lost in that relocation.
02:23Have you done an estimate of what the expected attrition is? If half the employees didn't relocate, do you expect to lose half of these employees?
02:32I think the Secretary has spoken to that. We expect to have better results this time around, in part because we learned some lessons from ERS-NIFA.
02:41I mentioned some of those earlier in terms of looking for places focused on cost of living, looking at where we actually already were and had a footprint of USDA employees with whom the new employees could collaborate.
02:55And I think that given what we're trying to sell and the fact that, as you acknowledge, we're looking to build the future of USDA, not just maintain the present, these will provide us with the incentives to get these positions.
03:09So what is your estimate of the attrition? If it was 50% of the last reorganization, what percentage?
03:14We don't have a specific number to offer at this time.
03:17Let me raise a broader concern. No regional offices in California. In fact, we are losing, in this reorganization, an Agriculture Research Service office in California.
03:30The $20 billion in disaster relief, that aid includes a broad authority to deliver assistance through block grants to states.
03:40Despite California expressing interest and the legislation having no limits, USDA has announced such a narrow set of qualifications, that it essentially excludes all but a few states in the Southeast.
03:55Moreover, USDA announced it was rescinding all but one Regional Conservation Partnership Program awards per state, and then all six California awards were canceled.
04:07Some of these projects even had the same goals as projects in other states, like my colleague, Senator Fetterman, in Pennsylvania.
04:14I hope you can understand, and this is not to denigrate from Pennsylvania, just California would like to enjoy the same thing.
04:22And so my question is, all of California's Conservation Program grants canceled.
04:30California doesn't qualify for disaster assistance on the narrow definition.
04:34California gets no regional office. California loses one of the existing offices.
04:39It's hard not to perceive this as a political calculation rather than one that's in the best interest of farmers, given our dominance in agriculture.
04:49What do you have to say to California farmers who are feeling that the administration, the president, is not representing them, that he's punishing them because the state didn't vote for him?
05:01Senator, that's not the case at all.
05:04With regard to moving more USDA employees, though not into California, much closer to California than Washington, D.C., our employees will have more ready access to your state.
05:16With regard to your notation about the ARS facility, I would note that the proposed closure of it is not a creature of the secretary's reorganization.
05:25It is instead part of the president's budgetary proposal to this body.
05:29And, of course, I am well aware that Congress holds the power of the purse, and they make the final decision on what will get funded.
05:36Finally, with regard to disaster assistance, I know that the first level of the block grant funding that we announced focused on those who had crop insurance and accepting those specialty crop producers who participate in NAP who are eligible for the current round of block grants.
05:58Especially crops were left out. There is a second tranche that was noted and has yet to be announced that is designed to include so-called shallow losses, which, as you know, are losses that are not covered by crop insurance.
06:12So I'd love to talk with you more about that in the future as we move toward rolling out that proposal.
06:18I will take you up on that invitation, but let me just say this.
06:22The fact that the California office is being closed as a budgetary decision rather than as a reorganization position does not give Californians any comfort.
06:33They just know they're losing an office and losing access.
06:37In terms of an office in Utah being only 500 miles away, that is also not much of a comfort to California farmers.
06:45Particularly when California farmers, I think, if that's the choice, would rather have the experience of the current USDA employees in Washington than an inexperienced group of new employees in Utah.
06:57And finally, the proof will be in the pudding.
07:00Right now, California grants are canceled. Right now, California doesn't qualify for disaster assistance.
07:06And, you know, however that is justified or rationalized, the proof will be whether resources actually get to California farmers.
07:14And that's the standard will hold the administration to.
07:16Thank you, Chairman.
07:17Senator Justice.
