President-elect Donald Trump has floated a lot of names and met with several candidates, but has yet to nominate anyone to serve as agriculture secretary. That concerns some members of Congress, who are working to reauthorize farm programs.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st District, who serves on the committee that’s drafting new legislation to authorize various farm programs, says that work can’t really get underway without the new administration having at least a nominee for agriculture secretary to work with the panel.
“We don’t even have a secretary of agriculture appointed yet, much less have any idea what their agenda would be like or what their perspective on a farm bill will be. We have no sense of a Trump administration and how they feel about agriculture,” she says.
Pingree says there are many agricultural issues that need to be addressed, from subsidies to farmers to food stamps and agricultural research programs. She says it’s not clear what the agricultural policies of the Trump administration will be, or what sort of priority will be given to developing a new farm bill.
“We could be completely in line or we could be so far apart that it’s going to be more work to write a farm bill than it ever was before. It may not even be a priority of theirs so there is so much we just don’t know and that is true in almost every issue area,” she says.
