Donald Trump

President Trump's choice for USDA chief scientist, college professor Sam Clovis, appears to lack the credentials for the job, said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, which will vote on the nomination. The Union of Concerned Scientists said Clovis, "a vocal climate denier...is an unacceptable and illegal choice for this important role."

Sam Clovis, co-chair of Donald Trump's presidential campaign and a Tea Party activist from Iowa, is the president's choice to run USDA's research and economics agencies, said the White House, in a selection criticized for weeks before it was announced. Trump tabbed Indiana state agriculture director Ted McKinney for the newly created post of agriculture undersecretary for trade.

After meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, President Trump told reporters that he might consider recommitting the United States to the Paris climate accord, which he pulled the country out of in May, said Reuters.

President Trump's best decision on agriculture was to put Sonny Perdue in charge of USDA, says economist Barry Flinchbaugh, a farm policy expert and Kansas State University professor. Perdue provides sound advice to the president, said Flinchbaugh, who gave Trump a "C" average on the four issues of farm bill, trade, immigration and deregulation, reported Drovers.

Six state prosecutors from New York, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia are joining environmental and social advocacy groups in a lawsuit to push the EPA to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos. "It is EPA's responsibility to protect Americans from unsafe chlorpyrifos residues on food because of the potential neuro-developmental and other adverse health effects caused by exposure," the prosecutors said in their filing, according to Reuters.

Congressional and food-aid groups say the White House quickly dropped plans for an executive order to put all U.S. food aid on U.S. flagged vessels, reported Reuters. The idea gained some support as an America First initiative but foes said it would drive up shipping costs and thereby reduce the volume of food delivered to needy areas.

The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are moving to rescind the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which clarifies which waters are federally protected from pollution under the original 1972 Clean Water Act. A statement from the agencies calls the rule, known as Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, an example of federal overreach.

After a commercial fisherman pulled a live Asian carp out of a northern Illinois river that empties into Lake Michigan, authorities have expressed concern that more of the invasive species have made it past electric barriers meant to keep them out of the Great Lakes, says the LA Times.

As average summertime temperatures rise across the West and southern Plains, wildfires are also becoming more frequent. Already this year, they have consumed more than 2.5 million acres.

The Trump administration has a target for beginning the renegotiation of NAFTA — mid-August — but there is no deadline for wrapping up discussions, assuming that talks are fruitful, said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. "We're going to get a good agreement, one that is transformative," Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee.

Two-thirds of rural Americans say people in big cities hold values that are different than theirs, and nearly half of urban Americans say the same thing—that rural values are different than theirs, said the Washington Post.

President Trump will announce new trade rules with Cuba intended to keep dollars out of the hands of the country’s military and intelligence agencies, said senior White House officials in advance of a presidential speech today in Miami. The officials indicated that food and ag exports would not be affected.

The Energy Department announced it would be disbanding the Office of International Climate and Technology, which was established in 2010 to help foreign countries lower their greenhouse gas emissions.

U.S. river traffic, key to farm exports, relies "on a dilapidated system of locks and dams that is more than half a century old" and needs a 21st-century update, said President Trump in pushing for a massive public works program. By coincidence, Trump spoke in the same city — Cincinnati — and used the same backdrop — barges on the Ohio River — that Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue did a month ago when he announced a reorganization of USDA.

The European Union hopes to enlist American cities and states to lower greenhouse gas emissions, now that President Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate treaty, Reuters reports.

After President Trump withdrew U.S. participation in the Paris climate treaty, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $15 million to help developing countries meet their goals under the agreement, says NPR.

President-elect Donald Trump called for a “streamlined spending bill” that also increases the federal debt ceiling on Wednesday as a replacement for the three-month government funding bill that congressional leaders produced the preceding day. That bill included $10 billion to offset a decline in farm income and $21 billion in disaster relief for agriculture.