U.S. senators press USDA to expand response to New World Screwworm outbreak

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USDA screwworm outbreak response

Highlights

Since June 3, 2026, the USDA has confirmed at least seven New World Screwworm cases in Texas and New Mexico, prompting urgent calls for stronger containment.
Twenty-one senators, led by Amy Klobuchar and others, urge the USDA to escalate its response as risks intensify for livestock producers, workers, companion animals, wildlife, and rural economies.
Current USDA actions include enhanced surveillance, sterile fly releases, and food supply safety confirmation, but lawmakers warn these measures are insufficient for the outbreak's scale.

Lawmakers call for faster containment steps

As reported by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Minority News, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senators Ben Ray Luján, Elissa Slotkin and Martin Heinrich are leading 17 colleagues in urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to take additional immediate action against the outbreak. In a letter, the group says the pest poses a growing risk to livestock producers, farm workers, companion animals, wildlife and rural economies across the country.

The senators write that since June 3, 2026, the USDA has confirmed at least seven cases of New World Screwworm in Texas and New Mexico. They describe the outbreak as an animal health emergency and call on the department to strengthen efforts to contain and respond to it.

Risks extend across livestock and rural economies

The letter says the USDA has already begun preliminary response measures, including enhanced surveillance, sterile fly releases, coordination with animal health officials in Texas and New Mexico, and confirmation that the U.S. food supply remains safe. The senators say those moves are important first steps, but they add that the evolving situation demands additional action proportionate to the scale of the threat.

Alongside the four lead senators, the letter is signed by Michael Bennet, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Tammy Duckworth, Tammy Baldwin, Jacky Rosen, Alex Padilla, John Hickenlooper, Tina Smith, Ed Markey, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Gary Peters, Jeff Merkley and Dick Durbin. The appeal highlights the potential economic and animal health consequences of a wider outbreak in key agricultural regions.

Our earlier article on Senate scrutiny of USDA-linked loan programs covered Chair Joni Ernst’s request for the SBA to review lenders removed from the USDA’s OneRD loan guarantee program but still active in the SBA’s 7(a) channel. We noted concerns that compliance failures flagged by USDA could indicate broader risks to taxpayer-backed guarantees, aligning with the SBA’s wider push to tighten underwriting standards and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

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