U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins, heart, poses for a photograph with Oklahoma Agriculture Secretary Blayne Arthur, left, and Texas Agriculture Secretary Sid Miller, proper, following a press convention discussing measures coping with the New World screwworm on the Texas Capitol, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025, in Austin, Texas.
Rodolfo Gonzalez | AP
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Monday referred to as Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller “unserious” after he criticized the USDA’s response to the rising risk from the flesh-eating New World Screwworm.
Miller, who misplaced the March Republican main in a bid for a fourth time period regardless of successful President Donald Trump’s endorsement, has repeatedly slammed the USDA’s response after the parasitic pest was detected in Texas final week. He has argued that the federal division acted too slowly to comprise the pest and ignored a response mechanism that he has pushed.
At a Monday information convention in Texas on the USDA’s response, Rollins was requested about Miller’s latest assertion that ranchers wouldn’t report a case on their farms over concern that the federal government would impose a quarantine.
“That may be a very unserious remark, from maybe an unserious ag commissioner with just some months left,” she mentioned of Miller. “It is usually a really harmful suggestion.”
The rift between Rollins and Miller successfully pits the highest agricultural leaders within the nation and within the state at the moment affected by the outbreak in opposition to one another. And it comes because the Trump administration races to comprise the screwworm, which threatens to skinny out an already weak cattle herd and additional increase beef costs.
Rollins, additionally a Texan, slammed Miller in an look on CNBC’s “Squawk Field” earlier Monday.
“It’s totally unlucky what the Texas ag commissioner has been saying, I’ve identified him for a very long time,” Rollins mentioned. “He misplaced his main because the incumbent a couple of months in the past, and has had a number of loopy concepts for a very long time.”
Underscoring the spat is that Miller, a former rodeo cowboy who was as soon as thought-about for Cupboard positions within the Trump administration, was endorsed by Trump simply months in the past earlier than shedding his main to the Texas Gov. Greg Abbott-endorsed candidate, Nate Sheets. Miller has been a longtime Trump surrogate, as soon as threatening to go after “RINOs” — shorthand for “Republican in identify solely” — who “slipped the noose” within the 2024 elections, and his criticism is a uncommon rebuke of Trump’s administration from a detailed ally.
In endorsing Miller, Trump mentioned he’s a “MAGA Warrior who has been with me from the very starting.”
Miller’s feud with the USDA over screwworm started instantly after the primary case was detected final Wednesday. In a prolonged assertion, he mentioned Rollins and her division moved “too slowly and relied solely on a partial answer that takes years to completely implement.”
He urged the USDA to implement the Screwworm Grownup Suppression System, or SWASS, which was developed within the 1970s and combines pesticides with sterile flies. USDA is at the moment deploying sterile flies.
Miller appealed on to Trump, asking him to “take direct management of this response” and “deploy SWASS instantly, and throw each accessible federal useful resource at this risk earlier than it turns into a full-blown agricultural catastrophe.”
Sid Miller, Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, takes a photograph throughout an occasion to “Have a good time the Implementation of the Dietary Pointers for People” on the Well being and Human Providers Headquarters on February 11, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Photos
USDA is urging any cattle producer who detects screwworm to instantly report it, because it races to comprise the pest, which may be lethal to cattle if left untreated. The pest spreads through a fly that lays eggs in an open animal wound. The eggs hatch into larvae, which then eat the flesh of the affected animal.
An infestation is treatable if detected early sufficient, and the pest was eradicated from the U.S. within the Sixties. It doesn’t signify a risk to meals security.
The USDA is at the moment implementing its screwworm playbook, just like the one used to eradicate the pest previously. That features quarantine zones, elevated trapping, surveillance and outreach. The USDA can be releasing sterile flies over the realm, which mate with feminine flies and produce infertile eggs to snuff out the parasite.
USDA is racing to ramp up the manufacturing of sterile flies, with Rollins on CNBC saying the administration was working at “Trump velocity” to deal with screwworm. That features breaking floor on a brand new facility to supply sterile flies and opening a brand new dispersal facility earlier this yr.
