After nearly three years in office, President Trump has a nominee for agriculture undersecretary for nutrition, Brandon Lipps, who has been running USDA’s public nutrition programs since July 2017. As a House staff worker, Lipps helped engineer $8.6 billion in food stamp cuts in the 2014 farm bill and he has figured prominently in three administration proposals to restrict SNAP eligibility and end benefits for an estimated 3.7 million people.
The White House announced the selection of Lipps on Monday, five days after USDA finalized the first of the three SNAP cutbacks. If confirmed by the Senate, Lipps would take a post that has been vacant since Trump took office. The administration and the Senate have been slow to fill USDA’s senior ranks. Two nominees for undersecretary are awaiting a vote in the Senate and four have been confirmed. The 2018 farm bill restored the position of undersecretary for rural development but the administration has not acted on it.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue appointed Lipps as administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees SNAP, WIC, school lunch and other public nutrition programs, in mid-July 2017, and elevated him to deputy undersecretary on Aug. 19. There has been little discussion on Capitol Hill or among hunger organizations about the lack of a nutrition undersecretary. “What difference would it make to the policy?” asked one activist in August.
Lipps was a lawyer for the House Agriculture Committee from March 2011-July 2014, where “he led the nutrition policy team in developing the first reforms to, and fiscal savings from,” SNAP since welfare reform in 1996, says USDA. After leaving Capitol Hill, Lipps was chief of staff for the chancellor of the Texas Tech University system before switching to USDA in 2017. He has a law degree from Texas Tech.
Some 100 House Democrats announced legislation last Friday to block the USDA from implementing stricter work requirements for SNAP recipients. Congress rejected broader and stricter work requirements while working on the 2018 farm law. The administration says it can act on its own to change the requirements.