ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Brooke Rollins, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, visited Asheville today to meet with members of the USDA Forest Service and witness the damage from Hurricane Helene and the recent area wildfires.
Around 1:30 p.m. this afternoon, Thursday, March 6, Rollins stopped by the Asheville Forest Supervisor’s Office for a “very frank” roundtable with U.S. Forest Service members about the destruction in the area.
Speaking to members of the press, Rollins addressed the devastation in western North Carolina. Sworn in three weeks ago as the 33rd Secretary of Agriculture, Rollins has been traveling the country meeting with farmers, ranchers and politicians.
“Today, we did a little bit of a different trip,” said Rollins.
Rollins surveyed a parcel of W.N.C. affected by the natural disasters before meeting with N.C. Governor Josh Stein.
“I think Governor Stein is doing such a good job,” lauded Rollins. “The most important thing is that wildfires and hurricanes know no political party. There is no Republican or Democrat as part of that. It is how we work together to ensure the people of this great state have the services they need and that we’re able to preserve the beauty of North Carolina.”
Rollins also fielded questions about the recent waves of layoffs that have swept through the USDA Forest Service in N.C.
She explained her stance on the Forest Service’s ability to respond to the fires or Hurricane Helene recovery after the terminations.
Read more about the Forest Service firings here.
“The reduction in force that we have implemented across USDA are non-firefighting, non-frontline facing firefighters. They are instead part of the 4,000 – not reduction in force, but the exact opposite – under Joe Biden when he added 4,000 people to the Forest Service that were non-firefighting employees over the last year,” said Rollins.
Rollins conceded that the fires have been significantly worsened in W.N.C. because of the kindling uncollected vegetative debris from Helene has provided. However, Rollins did not feel that the firefighting force of the Forest Service was impacted by staffing cuts.
However, there is one arena of the USDA Rollins thought the layoffs had negatively impacted: the handling of avian flu.
Read more about bird flu in North Carolina here.
“We have been the first to say mistakes have been made. It’s been reported that, on avian flu, mistakenly some of those front-liners have been let go,” Rollins admitted.
Rollins did say that, if required, new employees would be hired to combat the blazes sweeping the mountains.
“If at any point something comes up that is potentially compromising to this state and to our Forest Service’s ability to fight these fires effectively, we will immediately, immediately put those people back in place,” Rollins promised.
Rollins was also asked about when funding for farmers allocated after Hurricane Helene would finally reach the region.
“It is without question that our farmers are facing as tough an economy as they have seen in our lifetime, and then you add that here in this part of the state with the Hurricane Helene devastation and what they have seen firsthand,” Rollins empathized. “The importance of us at USDA being able to move these emergency funds out extremely quickly was almost the very first thing I thought about before I was confirmed.”
Around Christmastime, USDA was tasked by Congress with administering billions of dollars in aid to the region. Three months later, Rollins was confident that aid would arrive soon.
“The deadline that Congress gave us was towards the end of March. We will beat that deadline. Money will begin to move out very soon,” Rollins said.
Rollins then called on Congress to approve a Farm Bill, agricultural aid legislation she said had been shot down twice already.
“We are moving out President Trump’s bigger agenda right now. Reconciliation is the big issue. But my hope is as soon as we get through reconciliation and we’ve moved out the president’s tax cut, et cetera, that then we move to negotiating and into the Farm Bill,” Rollins said. “Once we have a farm bill, these emergency disaster relief funds become not quite as urgent to move out. But right now, it is everything to our community, and we’re working every day to ensure they move out.”
Rollins shared her admiration for the firefighters across the country who have been working to subdue fires.
“I had front-liners from two of our Forest Service firefighters. One group from California, another from Wisconsin. I’m wearing their shirt today: the Mark Twain Veterans Crew,” Rollins shared. “These are real American heroes.”
Before ending her meeting with the press and moving upstairs for the roundtable, Rollins clarified that the changes to the Forest Service are in an attempt to align with the new administration’s goals.
“The team back in Washington, while we’re restructuring the Forest Service in general to hopefully get more money into mission aligned and less into DEI and some of the other things from the last administration, I feel confident,” Rollins declared. “Everybody, thank you so much. Great to be here in your state. Hopefully, we’ll be back.”