The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday it plans to spend up to $1 billion in Commodity Credit Corporation funds to try to reduce the spread of bird flu. Bird flu, or H5N1, has disrupted the work of poultry farmers for years and began infecting dairy herds last year.

Soaring egg prices have consumers boiling, and on Wednesday, the United States Department of Agriculture blamed rising costs on the bird flu epidemic and said it will take new steps to quell the outbreak.

WASHINGTON — Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins rolled out the US Department of Agriculture’s $1 billion plan to lessen the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak and deal with the major increases in egg prices around the United States.