Senate Confirms Sonny Perdue to Lead Agriculture Department
April 24 2017 - 6:20PM
Dow Jones News
By Jacob Bunge
The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed former Georgia Governor
Sonny Perdue as secretary of the Agriculture Department, ending a
three-month vacancy atop the sprawling agency as the food sector
confronts potential changes to U.S. trade policy and farm-level
regulations.
Mr. Perdue, a Republican who grew up on a dairy farm and has
managed agribusinesses, was confirmed in an 87-11 vote, garnering
significant support from Democratic senators who saw him as an
experienced manager who will maintain supports for U.S. farmers
navigating a crop-price slump.
Awaiting Mr. Perdue is the worst farm-economy slump in decades,
with U.S. net farm income projected to fall for a fourth
consecutive year to $62.3 billion, half the record $123 billion
farmers earned in 2013, according to USDA projections. The
agricultural sector, which heavily relies on exports, has also
watched warily as President Trump's administration has moved ahead
with an overhaul of U.S. trade policy, including withdrawing from
the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which farm groups generally had
backed.
The vote makes Mr. Perdue among the last members of Mr. Trump's
cabinet to be confirmed, though many other senior vacancies remain.
Robert Lighthizer, Mr. Trump's nominee for U.S. trade
representative, and Alexander Acosta, nominated to head the Labor
Department, still await confirmation.
It also fills a gap that troubled some crop and livestock
producers across U.S. farm states, which heavily factored into Mr.
Trump's electoral victory in November. The president's focus on
deregulation resonated with farmers and ranchers who chafed under
federal environmental and regulatory restrictions that some saw as
onerous.
Mr. Perdue is expected to start work at the USDA, which employs
around 100,000, by addressing employees Tuesday. The agency has a
hand in promoting U.S. grain, meat and fiber to foreign buyers,
regulates genetically engineered crops, inspects meatpacking plants
and oversees the $71 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program, formerly known as the food stamp program. He also needs to
fill senior positions at the USDA to oversee areas such as trade,
food safety and rural development.
Mr. Perdue also will step into a growing trade dispute with
Canada over U.S.-produced milk used to make cheese, which some U.S.
producers have argued is unfairly shut out of the Canadian market.
Separately, U.S. ranchers also lost pastures and animals in March
to wildfires, while chicken farmers have ratcheted up defense amid
new cases of avian influenza.
And Mr. Perdue may have to address those challenges on a smaller
budget, after Mr. Trump in March outlined a budget proposal that
would reduce the USDA's discretionary funding by about one-fifth to
$17.9 billion.
"It's just going to be very good to have a secretary finally,"
said Bill Northey, Iowa's secretary of agriculture.
Mr. Perdue is unrelated to the family that owns the poultry
company Perdue Farms Inc.
Write to Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 24, 2017 19:05 ET (23:05 GMT)
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