At the same hearing in which he said President Trump promised not to cut crop insurance in 2018, Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts confronted statements by Trump nominee Sam Clovis. “If there is some nominee coming before this committee who says crop insurance is unconstitutional, they might as well not show up,” said Roberts, arguably the strongest congressional advocate of the risk management tool.
“I’m with you, Mr. Chairman,” responded Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who raised the issue. The senior Democrat on the committee, Stabenow did not mention Clovis, Trump’s top political operative at USDA, by name. Instead, she said there was “a nominee who will come before us for a position at USDA” who has questioned the constitutionality of crop insurance and who advocated its elimination. Clovis, nominated for USDA research undersecretary on Tuesday, is the only USDA nominee who has expressed those views.
A Tea Party conservative, Clovis said in a 2013 radio interview that federally subsidized crop insurance was not explicitly authorized by the Constitution. In 2014, he told Iowa Public Radio that “most of the Iowa farmers I talk to would just as soon have the government out of their lives and that includes the insurance program.”
A Roberts aide was not immediately available to comment on whether the chairman supports the nomination. The Kansas Republican said after the hearing that Clovis needed to explain his views, according to The Hagstrom Report.
Last September, Clovis said then-candidate Trump had “made it very clear that agriculture is a national security issue and should be treated as such,” reported Agri-Pulse. It said Trump viewed crop insurance and commodity programs as matters of national security.
Clovis was co-chair of the Trump presidential campaign and senior policy advisor to Trump, as well as intermediary to agricultural groups. If confirmed by the Senate as undersecretary for research, Clovis also would be USDA chief scientist. By statute, the chief scientist is to be chosen “from among distinguished scientists with specialized or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics.”
Although he was a professor of business and public policy at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, Clovis has never taken a graduate course in science and is openly skeptical of climate change, says ProPublica. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s in business administration and a doctorate in public administration.
Farm groups have made a strong crop insurance program their No. 1 priority for the 2018 farm bill. “It is actually crucial to the future of farming,” said Iowa farmer Bruce Rowher, who testified on behalf of the National Corn Growers Association at the Agriculture Committee hearing on credit, crop insurance and risk management. Crop insurance is the largest of USDA’s farm support programs, running at nearly $8 billion a year.
In May, Trump proposed a 36 percent cut in the federally subsidized crop insurance program over the coming decade by reducing the government subsidy of insurance premiums — the government pays roughly 62 cents of each $1 in premium — and elimination of subsidies for policies with the so-called harvest price option, which indemnifies growers for crop losses at the harvet-time price if it’s higher than the price guaranteed at planting time. Some 80 percent of crop insurance policies carry the harvest price option.
“The president has assured me personally crop insurance will not be cut,” said Roberts, who said he met Trump on the issue “about three weeks ago” and spoke by telephone with White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney on the matter. “That dog’s not going to hunt.”
Farm groups and insurers describe crop insurance as a public-private partnership that pays producers only when they suffer a loss. Insurance is an easier concept to explain to taxpayers and easier to defend politically than straightforward crop subsidies for low prices. Critics say federal supports of crop insurance are too generous and with the shift to so-called revenue policies, the government is protecting farmers from lower-than-desired market prices rather than crop disasters.
Roberts has been a proponent of crop insurance for years, saying it provides aid more rapidly and reliably to growers than federal support programs.
Republicans control the Senate, 52-48, so Clovis will start with a numerical advantage if opposition to his nomination turns partisan. Three Democratic senators have questioned if Clovis is qualified for chief scientist; two of them, Stabenow and Pat Leahy of Vermont, serve on the Agriculture Committee.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, also an Agriculture Committee member, told reporters that he supports Clovis, a fellow Iowan. The full title of the post is undersecretary for research, education and economics, he said during a tele-conference. “I want to repeat that — research, education and economics — because there’s some(thing) said about his not being a scientist, but he’s also an economist.”
Meanwhile, House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will attend a farm bill “listening session” on Monday at Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas.
To watch a video of the Senate hearing or to read the written statements of witnesses, click here.