USDA executive Bill Northey to be sworn into office in Des Moines

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue plans to be at the Iowa Ag Leaders Dinner in Des Moines this evening to give the oath of office to Undersecretary Bill Northey, who will oversee the crop subsidy, crop insurance and land stewardship programs. He will be fifth Trump nominee to go to work at USDA out of 13 senior positions subject to presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

“I expect to see him on Wednesday,” said Deputy Secretary Steve Censky during remarks at a school nutrition conference. Censky is in charge of day-to-day operation of the USDA.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz blocked a Senate vote on Northey, who is in his third term as Iowa’s elected agriculture secretary, for four months in a dispute with Midwestern senators over ethanol policy. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is the foremost Senate advocate of biofuels. The Senate confirmed the nomination last week in a vote coordinated with a White House meeting on ethanol.

The last of Trump’s cabinet nominees, Perdue got a historically late start as agriculture secretary in late April 2016, four months after Trump took office. The administration has moved slowly in nominating the executives who will help carry out Trump’s policies at USDA. For example, it has yet to name its choices for undersecretary posts in charge of food safety, public nutrition, research, or the Forest Service.

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