Members of the Senate Agriculture Committee are scheduled to vote Tuesday on two Trump administration nominees, Dan Berkovitz to be a CFTC commissioner and James Hubbard to be agriculture undersecretary for natural resources. Because of the arcane procedures of the Senate, the committee vote on Berkovitz is likely to mean Senate approval of the nomination of another CFTC commissioner, Dawn Stumpf, whose nomination has been sidetracked for a year.
Berkovitz and Hubbard are expected to win easy Senate confirmation. Stumpf, a Republican, was well received at a Senate Agriculture hearing last year. Action on her nomination was withheld on the Senate floor, however, pending White House nomination of a Democrat, so that a pair of commissioners, one from each party, would arrive at the CFTC at the same time.
Hubbard, who has spent his career as a forester, would oversee the U.S. Forest Service as undersecretary. The Forest Service employs roughly one-third of all USDA workers. Hubbard said recently that he would lead efforts against sexual harassment at the agency.