President-elect Donald Trump has waited so long that, with 10 days left before he takes office, there are rising odds that his nominee for agriculture secretary will get a late and perhaps bumpy start at USDA. Trump interviewed such a wide variety of candidates, from a California winegrower to a food scientist, that it’s unclear what his administration will emphasize in its opening days beyond opposition to regulation of agriculture and support for corn ethanol.
Trump has taken longer than any president-elect since Franklin Roosevelt in February 1933 in announcing his agriculture secretary. The long search has provoked grumbling among farm groups and kept the political pot bubbling. Iowa Sen Chuck Grassley tweeted, “hope pres-Elect chooses next Ag sect from above the Mason-Dixon Line where the states of IA, Mich, Wisc, Ohio, Penn lie.” And chief executive Robert Engel of CoBank, an agricultural lender based in Denver, has decided to angle for an interview with Trump for the job, said The Hagstrom Report.
Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the first person interviewed by Trump for agriculture secretary, on Nov. 30, was regarded as the front-runner for the nomination, a ranking that was first reported a week ago. Agriculture and Veterans Affairs are the only cabinet departments without a Trump nominee for secretary. Assuming normal procedures are followed, a USDA nominee would face a confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee, followed by a committee vote and a floor vote, before beginning work in “the cage,” as the secretarial suite is known at USDA.
“With such a late handoff, the transition at the USDA may be quite bumpy,” said FoodDive, a food industry news site, pointing to USDA’s huge workforce and budget and its presence in almost every county. Trump “has a history of unpredictable policy statements” and the wide variety of people interviewed for the job make it “difficult to predict what the new reality will be for the industry starting on Jan 20 … A cabinet pick to oversee the industry could calm concerns on these matters – or give the industry reason to start making internal changes and ready its network of lobbyists.”
A blog by a Washington law firm, Squire Patton Boggs, made the same point: Trump “has not given many specific details concerning his views toward current food or farm policies” so “the incoming agriculture secretary’s background, past experiences, and advocacy work may prove to exemplify the types of changes to food and farm policies we can expect to see under a Trump administration.”
Incoming administrations traditionally are leery of hold-over officials from the outgoing administration, a suspicion that often includes civil service employees, and want their own team in control. Without a team member in charge, the newcomers might worry that momentum will be squandered and initiatives watered down.
Trump “plans to give his cabinet secretaries and top aides significant latitude to run their agencies … according to people involved in and close to the transition,” said Politico. Trump “doesn’t usually like getting into day-to-day minutiae … and would rather focus on high-profile issues, publicity and his brand.”
That would be a notably different approach from past presidents, whose White House staffs have closely directed the operations of cabinet departments. The White House budget office, the gatekeeper for the regulations that put policy into action, can be ruthless in quashing ideas that stray from the administration agenda.
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter told reporters that he’s had no recent contact with the Trump team, said the Idaho Statesman, based in Boise. A couple of weeks ago, he was being vetted for consideration for USDA.