The general election is more than six months away and the new administration won’t take office for nine months but the farewells are being heard already on Capitol Hill. Tom Vilsack, the longest-tenured agriculture secretary since the Kennedy-Johnson era, got the congratulatory pat on the back a few weeks ago during his final round of testimony before House and Senate appropriators. For the same reason, 12-term California Rep Sam Farr was the center of attention in the opening moments of the House Appropriations Committee session to vote on $147.7 billion in funding for USDA, FDA and related agencies. Farr, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing USDA and FDA, will retire at the end of the year so the “mark up” on Tuesday was the last time he would bring a bill to the committee. “He’s member’s member. He wants to do the right thing,” said Nita Lowey, the top Democrat on the committee.
“I want to once again recognize his tireless work on behalf of American agriculture, rural communities and the hungry here and abroad,” said Republican Robert Aderholt, chairman of the USDA-FDA subcommittee.
Farr called for attention to poor Americans. “What a great America it will be when everyone has what they need to eat,” he said, as well as education and a safe home. “I learned in the Peace Corps, if you have those things, you have a chance,” said Farr, who was a Peace Corp volunteer in Colombia in the mid-1960s.