Following last week’s discovery of New Mexico’s first New World screwworm case, members of the state’s congressional delegation on Thursday announced legislation intended to curtail the spread of the parasitic fly.

U.S. Representative Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat who represents the state’s southern 2nd Congressional District, announced the Protecting America’s Herds Act during an Albuquerque news conference with co-sponsor and fellow Democrat U.S. Representative Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the 3rd Congressional District, surrounded by a bevy of agricultural, livestock and wildlife officials.

New Mexico agriculture officials on June 8 reported the state’s first case of New World screwworm, detected in a Lea County dog, just days after the first U.S. incursion of the devastating parasitic fly in a south Texas calf. State livestock officials the following day issued an emergency declaration allowing for additional state and federal assistance. Federal officials declared the fly eradicated from the U.S. for the past 60 years, and its return poses a threat to wildlife, livestock, pets and people.

Image

Both Vasquez and Leger Fernández criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its response to the screwworm situation, which they characterized as lackluster. The pest, named for the maggot’s behavior of eating live tissue, advanced rapidly through Mexico after being mainly contained in Central America for several decades.

“We are very concerned about the spread of the screwworm in the United States,” Leger Fernández said, “but we were first concerned back when we heard that it was spreading northward, and as we know, we started hearing that in 2024 especially.”

“Sadly,” she said, the federal government “did not move with the urgency that we think this requires.”

Leger Fernández specifically referenced the delayed construction of a sterile-fly production facility in Texas. Sterile flies, officials say, constitute the best response to the New World screwworm “by disrupting their ability to reproduce.”

Vasquez led a letter from the delegation in April asking USDA officials to report on the status of the facility. The USDA on Tuesday announced funding for “40 breakthrough projects to bolster the nation’s defenses against New World screwworm.” According to its screwworm dashboard, the U.S. now has 12 cases.

Vasquez’s legislation, as described, would create a USDA grant program to fund cooperative extension services so they could train people on New World screwworm identification, treatment and prevention; allow extension agents to act as livestock inspectors; empower them to train and hire more livestock inspectors; increase coordination between USDA and other interested parties, such as veterinarians and tribal agriculture officials; and prioritize funding for states and tribal communities at heightened risk of New World screwworm.

Image

In a statement, Vasquez noted that New World screwworm is not a “distant problem.” Rather, “It’s here, right in our backyard. That’s why I’m raising the alarm in Congress and leading a bipartisan effort to make sure lawmakers understand this isn’t just a New Mexico or Southwest issue — it’s a national threat to our food supply, our ranchers, and American families — and we need to respond now.”

At the news conference on Thursday, numerous agriculture, livestock and wildlife officials expressed their support for the bipartisan legislation, which has been endorsed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, New Mexico State University, the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, the Public Lands Council and Rocky Mountain Farmers Union.

State veterinarian Samantha Holeck, in her remarks, said she wanted to emphasize that New World screwworm “is not a food safety issue,” nor is it an infectious disease. In addition, “it’s treatable if it’s caught early.” She also reinforced Vasquez’s comments that New World screwworm is not a political issue.

“This is a nationwide issue that we all need to address,” she said, “because it affects all warm-blooded animals, including humans.”

Holeck also referenced New Mexico’s previous encounter with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza’s impact on the state’s dairy cattle.

That situation “really strengthened the interagency cooperation that happens here in New Mexico, and also with our federal partners at the USDA level, and I think that those are the really important relationships to help get us through what’s ahead,” she said. “We will get through this. We’ve been through this before.”

Holeck also noted that the Lea County dog with New Mexico’s first case of New World screwworm has recovered.

“He is healed, and he will be going home today,” she said.

Danielle Prokop contributed to this report.