Rollins, Vilsack spar over screwworm history

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Wednesday that the Biden administration didn’t do “anything” to prepare for the northward movement of the New World screwworm, but in an exclusive statement to The Hagstrom Report, Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary under President Biden, said Rollins was wrong.

At a Senate Agriculture Committee oversight hearing, Rollins detailed the Trump administration’s actions since January 2025, but claimed the Biden administration had taken no action during the years that the screwworm moved northward.

“What I don’t understand,” Rollins told Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., “is how did the last USDA watch it coming for years — it broke the [Darien] Gap in 2021 — moving up 2022, moving up 2023, spreading, spreading, spreading, hits Mexico 2024, there’s no stopping it, there’s not enough sterile flies. Why did no one do anything about it until we walked in the door in January and February of last year?”

Asked by The Hagstrom Report whether he agreed with Rollins’ assessment, Vilsack said in an email, “It is disingenuous for Secretary Rollins to suggest the Biden administration did nothing in light of the following:

“1. When the screwworms crossed the southern border into Mexico in 2024, we worked with the Mexican government to increase millions of sterile flies weekly in the area where the screwworm was detected, deployed more sophisticated surveillance methods to promote early detection of any spread, provided staff to assist in the surveillance effort, and closed southern points of entry for any live cattle and related imports from Mexico (November 2024, which at the time was perceived to be a very aggressive step).

“2. We freed up responses and worked with our partners to develop preparedness plans in the event of additional sightings.

“3. We strongly encouraged Mexico to build the additional sterile fly production facility that will soon come on line.”

Rollins said that USDA had only 10 employees working on the screwworm issue but now has 120 people devoted to it, but Vilsack added, “I sympathize with the secretary because this is a very serious situation that occurred on her watch. It probably did not help that under this administration APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] staff was cut. Perhaps attention was diverted from potential problems while leadership and senior staff focused on ‘reorganizing the department.’ As a result, the department is playing catch-up on this when time now is of the essence. It might be a better use of time to focus on what needs to be done now and assessing what may have been missed in last 16 months to prevent further expansion into the U.S. rather than wasting time try to point a finger at someone else. As they say, when you point one finger at someone else at least three fingers are pointed back at you.”

During the hearing, Rollins said that she had gone to President Trump in the Oval Office and told him that USDA needed $1.3 billion to address the screwworm. After the hearing, Rollins told reporters USDA was able to assemble that money because APHIS rules allow for crisis reallocation, and that some of the money came from Biden administration programs.