Amy Klobuchar, United States Senator from Minnesota | Twitter
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, delivered an opening statement at a hearing to review the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) proposed reorganization. The hearing featured testimony from USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Stephen Vaden.
Klobuchar criticized the administration for introducing its reorganization plan without prior notice or consultation with agricultural leaders. She said, “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for working with me to hold this hearing at the last moment. And the reason it's short notice is because the Administration put out a half-baked plan with no notice and without consulting agricultural leaders.”
She expressed support for efforts to improve USDA operations but raised concerns about recent staff reductions and their impact on agriculture: “As we start this discussion, let me be clear: I support efforts to make USDA work, but I don't think getting rid of 15,000 employees, which has already happened because of early buyouts, because of firing people, because of everything else that's happened, is good for agriculture. I don't think that these tariffs, which have dried up markets when our farmers and ranchers are already working on thin margins, have been good for Agriculture.”
Klobuchar warned that the current approach could lead to reduced services for rural communities. She noted that while most USDA employees are already based outside Washington D.C., dispersing remaining staff across new regional hubs could further limit their ability to collaborate with other agencies and Congress.
“It also means having staff in a place if we want to do our jobs right, where they can meet with their peers in other agencies and interact with key stakeholder groups and members of Congress whittling down USDA resources to do this crucial work puts rural America at a disadvantage when they don't have people in the room where it happens,” Klobuchar said.
She highlighted her concern about the impact on research capacity within USDA. Citing a 2023 Government Accountability Office report, she pointed out that previous relocations led to fewer reports produced by the Economic Research Service (ERS) and delays in grant processing by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). According to Klobuchar: “GAO explicitly stated, based on this much smaller relocation, that ERS produced fewer key reports and that NIFA took longer to process grants because of relocation.”
Klobuchar argued that such disruptions harm farmers’ access to timely information and research funding: “This means farmers didn't get timely economic information, and researchers were left waiting for critical research funding. This reorganization plan would create similar chaos, but on a much grander scale…”
She also mentioned concerns about vacating long-standing research labs and losing more personnel: “Vacating long-standing research labs… and pushing researchers out of federal service will threaten the innovation that our farmers demand and need… Just this year, 1,600 employees have already left USDA research agencies.”
The senator called for greater transparency in developing major policy changes affecting rural America: “It is unacceptable that we learned about this proposal just minutes before it was announced… It has injected uncertainty at a time when USDA customers look for certainty and trust.”
Klobuchar concluded by expressing disappointment over what she described as a lack of collaboration from USDA leadership regarding the reorganization plan.
