Donald Trump

The Senate could vote as early as this week to confirm Steven Censky as deputy agriculture secretary and Ted McKinney as undersecretary for trade. They are the first Trump nominees for USDA to be cleared for a floor vote by the Senate Agriculture Committee since March 30, when the nomination of Secretary Sonny Perdue was advanced to the floor.

The Inspector General has launched an investigation into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s air travel, after complaints that Zinke was using a private plane owned by an oil executive. That particular flight, from Las Vegas to Zinke’s home state of Montana, cost taxpayers $12,000, according to the Washington Post.  But other taxpayer-funded flights, including one to speak at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, are also being questioned.

The 357,000-member Alabama Farmers Federation, the largest farm group in the state, endorsed appointed Sen. Luther Strange four months ago and is standing by him for next Tuesday’s runoff election with Roy Moore, former chief justice of the state Supreme Court. President Trump is scheduled to hold a rally for Strange on Friday night in Huntsville, in northern Alabama.

The senior Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, said in a letter to supporters that she opposes the nomination of Sam Clovis to be the USDA's chief scientist, "and I call on President Trump to withdraw it immediately," reported Hill Heat, which covers global warming. Stabenow is the first member of the agriculture committee to formally oppose Clovis, a co-chair of Trump's presidential campaign and his chief political liaison at the USDA.

Following Donald Trump's election as president, "a sizable share of college admission directors say they have intensified efforts to recruit in rural areas and find more white students from low-income families," says the Washington Post, based on a survey by Inside Higher Ed. "His campaign capitalized on heavy support from rural America and from white voters without college degrees — sectors of the population many colleges historically have struggled to reach."

"Most of that group also lack experience working in agriculture. The 42 appointees include a number who do have farm-policy chops — but none of those tout time on the Trump campaign," said Politico in its Morning Ag newsletter. "Among this crop of appointees are a former cabana boy, a truck driver, an AT&T cellular phone salesman and the owner of a scented-candle company."

Exports generate an important part of U.S. farm income, yet they are jeopardized by President Trump's decision to renegotiate NAFTA and his threats to cancel the U.S.-Korea trade pact, writes former agriculture secretary Dan Glickman in an essay in The Hill newspaper. "These two threats alone have serious potential implications for the health of American agriculture, which is so dependent on agriculture exports.

Former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said President Trump’s nominee to head the USDA’s research division wouldn’t be a credible choice with the scientific community, according to Harvest Public Media. Trump nominated former conservative talk radio host and economics professor Sam Clovis to be the USDA’s chief scientist in July, setting off a wave of criticism.

President Trump’s decision to end DACA, the Obama-era program that gave work permits to children of undocumented immigrants, is likely to touch off a “civil war” over immigration among congressional Republicans, reports DTN. Trump urged Congress to replace the program with legislation before it expires next March.

Once again, farmer groups expressed concern over the heated rhetoric coming out of the White House over trade agreements. The American Soybean Association and U.S. wheat groups were especially critical as a result of indications that the White House would withdraw from the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea as early as Tuesday.

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of one of the committees investigating Russian meddling in U.S. elections, said on Twitter that President Trump called him and "he assured me he's pro-ethanol ... he knows that ethanol is good, good, good." The phone call came on the same day the Senate Judiciary Committee said it would interview Trump's son, Donald Jr., in coming weeks as part of the Russia investigation.

The first overhaul of the tax code in three decades should result in a one-page tax return for most Americans, President Trump said in Missouri, while declaring that tax reform is the foundation of job growth. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said separately that the estate tax, a bugaboo of the farm sector, should be part of the overhaul expected to be a Republican priority in Congress this fall.

After a controversial four-month review of 27 U.S. national monuments, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke won’t recommend that the White House do away with any of them. He did say, however, that “a handful of sites” could see their boundaries changed or shrunken, says the Associated Press.

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.