Jared Huffman Grills Fish And Wildlife Service Official On Effect Of DOGE Cuts On Conservation

5 months ago

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) questioned Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Justin Shirley about DOGE cuts.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Shirley, welcome. Good to meet you. I want to

00:06ask you about how DOGE and its overhaul of the federal government, which has

00:14driven thousands of experienced public servants out of service, either laid off

00:18or sidelined. I'm sure it's had a major effect on your agency. And we see in just

00:24about every bill before us here today a whole bunch of new things that would be

00:29asked of you and your colleagues at the Fish and Wildlife Service. Automatic

00:34approvals of permitting, tighter deadlines, major new administrative

00:39responsibilities. Now your core mission is to protect fish and wildlife, to manage

00:44refuges, to do a whole bunch of things, but it is not to drop everything and do

00:50all of this new stuff so that some people can get maybe permits faster. So I want

00:56to just ask you from the perspective of the Fish and Wildlife Service's current

01:01capacity, how did these legislative changes affect your ability to fulfill your actual

01:06conservation mission? Thank you Representative, that's a great question. I've been out here

01:14for five weeks so far, so I'm pretty new to this, but you bring up mission and that hits

01:21to the heart, right? The very first statement in the mission of the Fish and Wildlife Service

01:26is we do this with others. And then it goes on to say what it is and then it says for the benefit

01:33of the American people. And as I look at some of what you you mentioned of employees that have

01:40taken the fork in the road or have taken a deferred retirement option, I come from a place of state

01:48government where I always felt like we were pretty lean and mean and having to figure out ways,

01:56new ways, innovative ways, new places we could use technology and to be able to further the mission

02:04of what we're trying to do. And I think with the service in particular, we're in a place that we

02:11have always needed our partners and will continue to need our partners. And that seems like a great place

02:17to be moving forward to me. Do you have plenty of capacity to do all this new stuff or does this

02:22put you in a bind? Yeah, I think that what we're looking at is being able to streamline some of

02:27those processes, make them more effective, use technology to be able to help us through some of

02:32those processes, as well as getting the workforce in a place where we are communicating effectively.

02:40I don't want to talk about getting there. I'm going to talk, I want to ask about right now.

02:45I mean, you're reeling here from thousands and thousands of dedicated career staffers that have

02:52just left and they haven't been replaced. Do you have the capacity to do all the stuff these bills

02:58are asking you to do right now? It's an interesting perspective because having not been there before

03:04and coming in six weeks ago and seeing the work that's being done on the ground, we're just working

03:10on mission critical situations that we can continue to get done and leaning on our partners and leaning

03:15in. So you don't see a problem? I think that moving forward we're going to be in a much better place

03:21of how we're handling these. Okay. Let's talk about the conservation standard reflected here. The sea

03:28otter is a good example, plays a crucial role as a keystone species in preventing kelp forest collapse.

03:35In my district, the discussion draft before us would lower conservation goals from maintaining healthy

03:41functioning populations to just bear survival. Just don't let it go extinct. Why does the Fish and

03:48Wildlife Service believe it's important to maintain sea otter populations at a more meaningful and more

03:54ecologically meaningful level than that? If that is in fact your view. My assumption is that you think

04:01we need to do better because you're in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States.

04:06So I would hope that's your position, but I want to ask you. Yeah, thanks for that question. Again,

04:11all the discussion with MMPA has been enlightening to me for sure, coming from a very desert state and

04:18being able to really dive in and look at this situation and everything that we're dealing with

04:24and the streamlining of processes that you see in there. I think that it sounds like from what... This isn't

04:29about processes, this is about the conservation standard. This is, are we managing the sea otter

04:35to just sort of keep it alive and not go extinct, or are we managing to a more meaningful ecological

04:41standard? Yeah, I... It's a policy question. Sure, I believe that we are always working towards having

04:48the strongest, most robust populations and stocks, if you will, of marine mammals. So will you agree with

04:54me at least that lowering that standard to minimal triage is a bad thing for the mission of your,

05:01of your agency? I think when you mention minimal standard, I think that most of what we have tried

05:09to deal with is work that we want to get in a place where our partners, everyone just loves, loves

05:16sea otter populations and we're willing to work to make sure they're successful. Doesn't really answer my

05:21question. How many time has expired? Mr. Webster.

Jared Huffman Grills Fish And Wildlife Service Official On Effect Of DOGE Cuts On Conservation

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