'That Is Absolutely False': Salud Carbajal Tears Into Secretary Brooke Rollins Over SNAP Cuts

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During a House Agriculture Committee hearing last week, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) questions Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about immigration enforcement action on farms, and cuts to nutrition programs.

Transcript

00:01Gentleman yields back, now recognized gentleman from California, Mr. Carvajal for five minutes.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:06Welcome, Secretary Rollins.

00:08First of all, let me just say thank you for seeing the light and reopening the eight

00:15out of the nine USDA offices in California that you closed and then realized it was creating

00:21a lot of chaos for many of our farmers and would have a really negative impact.

00:27You reopened those and I want to thank you for that.

00:29I represent the central coast of California where agriculture is the number one industry

00:35and a wide range of specialty crops are grown.

00:38When I meet with growers back in my district, one of the major issues they mention is the

00:41labor shortage.

00:42I'm sure you're aware the administration has intensified its deportation efforts which have

00:48created significant fear and uncertainty within California's agriculture labor force.

00:54In fact, yesterday, a Farm Bureau in my district publicly voiced concerns over the impact of

01:02these enforcement actions.

01:03And Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask for unanimous consent to submit for the record the Ventura

01:10County Farm Bureau statement if I may do so.

01:13Without objection.

01:14I'm going to give you that.

01:17Secretary, given the uncertainty of this immigration climate as it relates to agriculture labor,

01:23what specific steps is the Department of Agriculture taking to support both farmers

01:27and their workforce?

01:28Well, thank you, and let me be clear, I think it was a least confusion with GSA.

01:34I don't think it was a USDA question, but neither here nor there.

01:37I'm glad those offices are open for our farmers again.

01:41The labor question is a significant one.

01:43It is one that is perhaps maybe not the very top of the list, but for some they would say

01:48the very top of the list.

01:50We feel it.

01:51I mentioned earlier that in Texas, the citrus producers on the Texas side of the border,

01:57on average, pay labor $23 if they can even get the labor.

02:00On the other side, at the Mexican border, it's $2 an hour.

02:04This is unsustainable, and our ag community cannot continue to do what they need to do under

02:08the current effort.

02:11Clearly the president has a vision that I support of ensuring that we've got legal immigrants

02:17in this country, but he also recognizes, I spoke with him this morning and yesterday,

02:23the shortages in the labor market, especially in the agriculture community.

02:26On April the 10th, at our second or third cabinet meeting, he spoke in front of the cameras

02:30on this and said to Lori Chavez-Durimer, also herself from a farming background from Oregon,

02:36but also California farming roots, our labor secretary, in concert and partnership with this committee

02:42and Congress, we have to fix the H-2A program and ensure that we can make, you know, certain

02:49that these producers have the labor that they need to feed not only America but the world.

02:56Well, they're creating a lot of fear and uncertainty, and a lot of this limited workforce is quite

03:01frankly not showing up to harvest our farms.

03:06Just yesterday, we had some immigration raids on some of the farms that are within my district,

03:13thus the statement that I just submitted.

03:15Secretary, I know some of my colleagues here today have brought up the issue with H-2A, and

03:22during your testimony before the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee last month, you mentioned

03:28that you were working with the Department of Labor and the White House to reform the H-2A

03:33program.

03:34Can you provide an update on the progress of those efforts, and would the administration

03:37support the bipartisan legislation such as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which

03:43is one bipartisan?

03:45Secretary DeRiemer was one of the co-authors of that, and I want to just draw that to your

03:49attention.

03:50One, would you support that?

03:52And which of your awareness, for your awareness, current Secretary of Labor DeRiemer, again, is

03:59a co-sponsor, and I would appreciate your response to that.

04:03Well, clearly, the real reform has to come from Congress.

04:06I mean, I don't mean to pass the buck.

04:08That is not it at all.

04:10But I have had lots of conversations.

04:12Can we do this?

04:13Can we do that?

04:14Can we do this?

04:15Congressional authorization?

04:16To your point, I think that the leadership currently, our administration realizes the

04:22significant challenges and are open and welcome to trying to help however we can to solve that,

04:28including the President.

04:29So I will continue that effort.

04:31Now, within the Labor Department, with Lori Chavez-Dremer, she is very focused on this

04:36issue.

04:37We have met about it multiples of times.

04:39I think you'll be hearing more about that very, very soon.

04:41But you have our commitment.

04:43We're doing everything we can to work to solve for that as much as we can.

04:47Can you explain how proposed cuts to nutrition programs like TFAP and SNAP benefit growers,

04:53especially when it's farmers who produce the fruits and vegetables for these programs?

04:58Well, so on the one hand, you're talking about the food bank programs.

05:02On the other, you're talking about SNAP.

05:03So I will talk about SNAP first.

05:06We spend, at just USDA, across 16 nutrition programs, about $400 million a day on those nutrition

05:12programs.

05:13That's just alone.

05:14By any given number, up to 30% of that is fraud, waste, and abuse.

05:19This is the, at this time of unemployment, we were at 17 million, we're now at 42 million

05:23people on the SNAP program.

05:25So there is a lot of room to do better.

05:28I'm out of time, but let me just say, fraud is 1% or less.

05:33There's other, that is absolutely false, so I just want you to know, you are falsifying

05:40information.

05:41That is not, that is what, please send what you have, and then let me compare it to what

05:45we have, because that is.

05:46Well, you could send me what you have, and we'll both compare what we have.

05:48Okay.

05:49I'll be happy to do that.

05:50Gentlemen, gentlemen's time has expired.

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