Minnesota bird flu, wolf tracking programs clouded in uncertainty amid Trump's federal funding freeze
Minnesota farmers say they are in a valley of uncertainty amid the layoffs and cost-cutting measures of the first few weeks of President Trump's second term.
"It's really ... a day-to-day, hour-to-hour situation," Minnesota Department of Agriculture commissioner Thom Peterson said.
Peterson says some programs and initiatives designed to help farmers are now in doubt. He also added that there are freezes on grants for research initiatives. He cited that some research funding that goes to the University of Minnesota, for example, is done.
"They've been put there for a reason because they help us get solutions that we need," he said. "I worry about this a lot."
On Thursday, a judge allowed Mr. Trump's efforts to shrink the federal workforce to move forward while legal proceedings continue, declining a request to temporarily block his firing of federal employees and other actions targeting government workers.
In Minnesota, Peterson says a number of other programs you may not think of — like a program that hires wolf trappers, or efforts to monitor the progression of bird flu — are on hold.
"As we get into spring calving season when a lot of our calves are born in Minnesota, the wolves get more active, and that is when we send the trappers out," Peterson said. "And they don't have the trappers."
Peterson says getting clarity on the new cuts has been difficult; he says he has sat on hold for hours in phone calls to the federal government.
"It's frustrating to Minnesota when we see a government that doesn't work. And I worry that right now, in some cases, it is not working," Peterson said.
Earlier in the week, a judge declined to halt Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) from accessing data systems at a number of federal agencies and firing or putting their employees on leave.
Musk has been visible throughout the efforts of DOGE thus far, but this week the White House said Musk is not an employee of DOGE and "has no actual or formal authority."
