-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, over the past 2 months, we have seen chaos unleashed across our country as Donald Trump and Elon Musk take a chain saw to our Federal Government, firing thousands of Federal workers en masse with no explanation and more firings to come. I suspect that by the time they are through--if they are ever through--hundreds of thousands of Federal employees will have been fired.

Rather than making government more efficient, these indiscriminate cuts are gutting our government from the inside out, effectively eliminating crucial programs and offices.

While Republicans shamefully paint hard-working Federal workers as faceless bureaucrats, we know that our Federal workers do important work, from ensuring Social Security checks go out to providing care for veterans and so much more.

Every State has individual Federal employees doing critical work-- often work that goes unseen. In Hawaii, for example, Fish and Wildlife Service employees are responsible for keeping invasive species out of our State. Once invasive species arrive in our islands, it is often impossible to eradicate them. That is why the work of these employees is so important.

Last month, the Trump administration fired Fish and Wildlife Service employees whose job was to keep one particular invasive species--the brown tree snake--out of our State. You can see, Mr. President, it is pretty ferocious. This picture depicts a brown tree snake eating a bird whole.

Native to Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, the brown tree snake was accidentally introduced to Guam during World War II and has been wreaking havoc on that island ever since. One of the most destructive invasive species in the world, the brown tree snake is responsible for the extinction of at least a dozen animal species in Guam, including many of the island's forest-dwelling birds and native lizards.

But the snake didn't stop at birds and lizards; it also went after Guam's native bats, domestic poultry, and even pets. As its population grew, the brown tree snake began invading power facilities, causing short circuits and frequent power outages. To this day, brown tree snakes cause nearly 200 outages a year in Guam, costing $4.5 million each year in repairs and lost productivity. To this day, brown tree snakes cause nearly 200 outages a year in Guam, costing $4.5 million each year in what they are doing in repairs--you can imagine what kind of havoc--and lost productivity by the millions.

Despite years of various attempts to control the brown tree snake, as of 2024, Guam's population of brown tree snakes is estimated to be in the millions. Sadly, it is highly unlikely that this invasive and destructive species will ever be fully eliminated from Guam.

Thankfully, the snake does not yet exist in Hawaii or anywhere in the continental United States, but that is not by accident or chance. It is because of the tireless work of Federal employees from several Agencies that has kept this snake out of Hawaii.

Since the creation of the Brown Tree Snake Program nearly 20 years ago, not a single brown tree snake has been found in Hawaii because the program works. The Federal investment in equipment, training, and hiring personnel works. Several Agencies, including the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense work together on the research, interdiction, and management of the brown tree snake.

But the firing of just one individual who served as the Brown Tree Snake Program coordinator in Hawaii threatens to nullify all of that successful work. This individual was responsible for ensuring that prior security protocols were being followed in coordinating amongst the different Agencies involved in the program. He has been doing this for a number of years. He has the expertise to do this well, to keep this snake out of Hawaii. He oversaw the implementation of the Brown Tree Snake Program for the entire Pacific region.

As I give this speech today, his position was eliminated for no good reason by Musk and Trump. To this day, his position remains vacant. As we know, there is a hiring freeze imposed by the President also. So if he is not reinstated, the likely scenario will be that it will not be a matter of if brown tree snakes are introduced to Hawaii, but when.

Let's be clear. If this snake makes it to Hawaii, I fear it is only a matter of time before it reaches the rest of our country.

Trump and Elon Musk think they can just take a chain saw to our Federal workforce and budget, hacking away with no consequences. But in 10 years, when brown tree snakes have decimated Hawaii's ecosystem and wreaked havoc in other States across our country, it will, obviously, be too late.

Mr. President, the brown tree snake is a real threat that Hawaii takes seriously. And in every State across our country, red and blue alike, there are Federal workers doing critical, often unseen work, to protect the health, safety, and well-being of our communities--critical Federal employees. Firing these employees will inevitably make our country and our communities less safe, less prosperous, and more vulnerable to outside threats from foreign governments to invasive species, and everything in between.

I stand ready to work with anyone serious about making our government more efficient, but these cuts are having the opposite effect.

I urge my Republican colleagues to join me in standing up for the critical Federal programs in our States and to the well-being of the American people by rejecting this administration's attacks on our government and the people who keep it working and who protect our communities.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source