Bay Area lawmakers are asking the federal government for $32.2 million in emergency funding to combat the spread of a grape pest. The glassy-winged sharpshooter is an invasive insect that threatens Northern California vineyards and the broader wine industry. In a letter sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, lawmakers warned that the pest and the disease it carries could create losses of about $104 million a year if allowed to spread.
The request comes after the California Department of Food and Agriculture found in May that infested grapevines had been supplied to multiple Costco locations across California. According to the lawmakers’ letter, those consumer sales helped spread the pest to at least 38 counties statewide.
The insect at the center of the concern is the glassy-winged sharpshooter, which spreads Pierce’s disease, a bacterial infection that is fatal to grapevines and can also damage almond, citrus, and ornamental plants. Northern California, as the heart of the U.S. wine industry, is considered especially vulnerable if the insect becomes established more broadly.
The funding request is meant to support tracing, surveying, trapping, and eradication efforts over what lawmakers estimate could be a four-year response. The letter was led by Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and signed by 12 members of the House. Bay Area lawmakers on the request included Rep. Mike Thompson of Napa, Rep. Jimmy Panetta of Monterey, Rep. Jared Huffman of San Rafael, Rep. John Garamendi of Vallejo, and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier of Antioch.
So far, state officials believe the infestation is limited to residential areas and has not spread into commercial vineyards. But industry representatives say the uncertainty itself is costly because officials still need to determine where the vines went, how widely the insect may have spread, and what level of outreach and trapping will be required to contain it.
Michael Miller, director of government relations for the California Association of Winegrape Growers, told Local News Matters that the state may have caught the problem early enough to avoid a larger crisis, but that the full scale is still unknown. He said the tracing, trapping, and outreach alone make the response a very expensive undertaking.
The contaminated plants were traced back to Burchell Nursery in Fresno County, according to the report. That detail adds another layer to the state’s response, as regulators and lawmakers try to understand how infested vines moved through the consumer supply chain and into neighborhoods across California.
For the Bay Area, the issue reaches beyond agriculture alone. Wine production is a major economic engine in parts of Napa, Sonoma, and surrounding regions, and any serious spread of Pierce’s disease would carry implications for growers, local employment, tourism, and the broader regional economy. The emergency funding request reflects the view among lawmakers that the threat needs to be addressed before it reaches commercial vineyards.
For now, officials are treating the outbreak as a containment problem rather than a confirmed commercial crop disaster. But the push for federal funding shows how seriously lawmakers are viewing the risk. If the sharpshooter continues to spread, what began as a residential plant issue could turn into a much larger challenge for one of California’s most important agricultural sectors.
