Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025 | 6:48 a.m.
U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., is calling on U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to spend the initial weeks in her new role exhausting efforts to lower record-high costs of eggs amid the bird flu outbreak.
“Astronomical prices, coupled with a severe egg supply shortage, are hurting hardworking families in my state,” Rosen wrote in a letter to the President Donald Trump appointee that was released this morning. “My constituents have continued to reach out, concerned that they cannot access this staple item and if they can, it is too expensive for their family to afford.”
The average price for one dozen eggs nationally is $4.95 — the highest in a decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In early 2024, the average price was just $2.52 for a dozen.
Rosen said Trump’s “lack of action” on lowering high grocery prices in Nevada was “unacceptable” and urged Rollins to work with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on mitigating bird flu harms.
She also asked that Rollins coordinate with the Federal Trade Commission to stop or prevent price gouging practices by “bad actors.”
H5N1 avian flu, or bird flu, is a disease that usually spreads between birds, not people, though one subtype is causing sporadic outbreaks also among dairy cows and — on rare occasion — some humans, according to the CDC. Data from the centers showed there are 68 human cases of bird flu, including one in Nevada caused by exposure to infected cattle.
In her letter, Rosen gave Rollins a March 5 deadline to respond with a list of actions the U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking to work on lowering grocery costs, supporting families and workers and ensuring domestic food supply chain safety. She said part of supporting the workforce meant avoiding layoffs within the department.
“Decisions to lay off hundreds of USDA employees, including those that are coordinating efforts to address the bird flu around the country, will only serve to make the situation worse,” Rosen wrote. “You must reverse course if this is indeed the case.”
Trump’s administration has been on a firing spree in its quest to trim the federal workforce, with USDA employees reported as recent collateral. The department told NBC News it accidentally fired several agency employees working on the government’s response to the bird flu outbreak over this past weekend and said it was working to rescind those decisions.
Rollins, in an appearance on “Fox and Friends” last week, blamed the high egg prices on the bird flu, but also on former President Joe Biden’s regulations and promised to be “rolling out more tools in the toolkit” to address the issue.
“Bad policy, overregulation, and the avian flu created the perfect storm, resulting in record-high egg prices,” Rollins wrote on X. “My team and I are working on immediate actions to help lower the cost of eggs and food in general for the American people.”
Nevada is also addressing rising egg costs.
Lawmakers last week worked to expedite Assembly Bill 171, which allows for the Nevada Department of Agriculture to increase supply by temporarily suspending the state’s ban on caged eggs. It was signed into law Thursday by Gov. Joe Lombardo.
“I think everyone here has heard from constituents about issues with the egg supply in the state and probably everyone’s experienced them firsthand,” Assemblymember Howard Watts, D-Las Vegas, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a committee hearing last week. “And it can vary even over the course of a day.”