During Tuesday’s Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) questioned Devon Westhill, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for Civil Rights, about equal access to United States Department of Agriculture programs.
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00:00Senator Hyde-Smith.
00:02Senator Hyde- Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to both of you for being here
00:06today with your families.
00:08It's certainly an exciting day for everyone, and I'm excited about your leadership and
00:12look forward to that.
00:14And Mr. Lindbergh, Mississippi leads the nation in catfish production, yet our producers
00:19face a lot of unfair competition, unfair subsidized, low-cost, and sometimes unsafe imported catfish,
00:28particularly from Vietnam.
00:31Growers in Mississippi and across the South raise high-quality, sustainable, grown, farm-raised
00:36catfish, and they follow very strict environmental, labor, and health standards.
00:43And how will you work with the U.S. Trade Representative and the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
00:49to ensure strict enforcement of inspection standards to prevent unsafe imports from harming consumers
00:56and domestic catfish producers?
00:58Thank you, Senator.
00:59I appreciate this, and we discussed this in your office, and I very much look forward to
01:03working with you and your staff to ensure that our domestic catfish producers do get
01:10the market here in America that they deserve.
01:12Certainly, somebody will have to explain to me someday how the United States of America, with
01:18two oceans on each side of us, and the mighty Mississippi, and the Great Lakes, and all of
01:24these things, and yet we're importing 75% of our seafood that we consume.
01:28I will absolutely work across my agency at USDA, should I be confirmed with this role, to ensure
01:35that exactly what you're saying, as well as with our interagency partners, to make sure
01:39our catfish producers have the ability to sell here domestically.
01:42Thank you, and Mr. Westhill, Congress in 2023 provided $3.7 billion in relief to support producers
01:53who had experienced economic losses due to the natural disasters.
01:57Unfortunately, the Biden administration changed the emergency relief program without input from
02:04Congress and with disregard for congressional intent.
02:08As a result, some of the hardest hit producers were left behind while they also wrestled with
02:14historically high inflation input cost and also the low commodity prices.
02:20Will you commit to ensuring fair and equal access to USDA programs for all farmers, regardless
02:27of operation size and the background?
02:31Thank you, Senator, for the question.
02:32And I think it's important for me to say that I have to ensure that I skate within my lane.
02:36My job, if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed, is to ensure that everyone who wants to do
02:42business with USDA, any of the customers in any of the areas across a very big department,
02:49are able to do that without any arbitrary barriers on any basis that's covered under civil
02:55rights laws.
02:56I commit to ensuring that individuals will be free from discrimination and participating
02:59in any USDA programs.
03:04And back to Mr. Lindbergh.
03:04The livestock and poultry producers in Mississippi and around the country have taken huge financial
03:10hits from animal diseases like high path avian influenza.
03:15And some countries like China use these disease outbreaks as an excuse for unjustified trade barriers
03:22that are not science based.
03:25And we saw this in BSE in early 2000 when it took 13 years for China to buy our beef again.
03:34And it is something that I worked on as the Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce during
03:39that time, that that was just their excuse.
03:41You had an outbreak.
03:43But what steps will you take to ensure that international trade restrictions imposed on
03:48U.S. products are science based and lifted promptly when conditions weren't?
03:53Thank you, Senator, for the question.
03:56I 100 percent believe that tariff barriers are one aspect of trade policy that countries use
04:03to against our farmers and ranchers.
04:05There are a lot of non-tariff barriers.
04:08And one of the ones you're discussing today is vitally important to them to have that market
04:12access and be able to get beyond that.
04:14As the Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, I will lead the CODEX office,
04:19which is our effort to work with the agencies around the world or different countries around
04:24the world to make sure we have a set of agricultural standards that meet the needs of our farmers
04:28and ranchers.
04:29That would be one avenue that I would work through to make sure that exactly the case you're listing
04:34here today was was fixed and and through that avenue, make sure that we set the appropriate
04:40standards that benefit our farmers and ranchers.
04:42I'm also a fierce advocate.
04:44I want to show up in those countries and knock the door down and say to them, it's time to
04:47open up and it's time to move forward.
04:50And this is no longer acceptable under President Trump and the America First Trade agenda.
04:54And so I look forward to doing that and getting on an airplane and and being there to actually
04:57make sure that that those get implemented in a timely manner.
05:01I look forward to that as well.
05:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman.