Three USDA nominations advance to Senate floor
On a voice vote, the Senate Agriculture Committee cleared for a floor vote three administration nominations for senior posts at USDA: Mindy Brashears for undersecretary of food safety, Scott Hutchins for undersecretary for research, and Naomi Earp for assistant secretary of civil rights. It …
Senate panel approves USDA and CFTC nominees
The Senate Agriculture Committee cleared two nominations, James Hubbard for agriculture undersecretary for natural resources and Dan Berkovitz for CFTC commissioner, for a Senate vote on Tuesday. If confirmed, as expected, Hubbard would be the fifth of the eight-member team of senior executives to join Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue at USDA.
For CFTC commissioner, Trump chooses the agency’s former lawyer
President Trump selected Dan Berkovitz, who was general counsel at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Obama era, as his nominee for commissioner of the agency, said the White House.
After a four-month wait, USDA nominee Northey wins Senate confirmation
Senators needed only 75 seconds to confirm Bill Northey by voice vote as the No 3. USDA official, ending a four-month delay tied to a fight over the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Trump fills two USDA executive slots, one with his campaign co-chair
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.
Senate to vote on USDA nominee Perdue after Easter recess
The first order of business for the Senate when it returns on April 24 from a two-week recess will be a vote on the nomination of Sonny Perdue for agriculture secretary. The last of President Trump's nominees for the cabinet, Perdue, a former two-term governor of Georgia, is arguably the last controversial nominee for the cabinet and has moved steadily, if slowly, toward confirmation.
It’s a day later but not a postponement for vote on Sonny Perdue
The Senate Agriculture Committee will try again today for a vote on Sonny Perdue to become agriculture secretary. Chairman Pat Roberts originally planned to hold a vote on Wednesday alongside a roll call vote by the full Senate but there was no such vote so the committee announced an "updated time" of today, immediately following the first floor vote in the chamber, expected around 9:45 a.m. ET.
A smooth path to USDA for Perdue, but not speedy
Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the last of President Trump's nominees for the cabinet, is sailing, albeit slowly, to confirmation as agriculture secretary with the backing of the major U.S. farm groups. The agricultural community talks so much about Perdue buckling down to work at USDA that today's confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee or Senate approval of the nomination seems like a formality.