President-Elect Obama Names Choice for Secretary of Agriculture
President-Elect Barack Obama has reportedly named former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack (D) to serve at the helm of USDA. Political observers characterize Vilsack as a centrist who balanced his state’s budget, resisted tax increases and agreed to spend tax revenues on education and health. Vilsack briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination, but dropped out due to difficulties raising campaign
funds. He is apparently a renewable energy proponent and is known as a staunch advocate of ethanol. An issue the USDA secretary will face in 2009 may be whether to grant the ethanol industry billions in federal aid as part of an economic stimulus package.
The Organic Consumers Association has already begun a campaign to stop Vilsack’s confirmation by the U.S. Senate. According to the association’s executive director, “Vilsack’s nomination sends the message that dangerous, untested, unlabeled genetically engineered crops will be the norm in the Obama administration. Our nation’s future depends on crafting a forward-thinking strategy to promote organic and sustainable food and farming, and address the related crises of climate change, diminishing energy supplies, deteriorating public health,
and economic depression.” Organic interests point to Vilsack’s support for “concentrated animal feeding operations,” genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, and corn- and soy-based biofuels, and complain that he is “just another shill” for corporate agribusiness. They note that a biotechnology industry group named Vilsack governor of the year and that he founded and chaired the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership. See The New York Times, MSNBC.com, Organic Consumers Association Press Release, December 17, 2008.
A left-leaning commentator, writing for “The Beat” blog in The Nation, called Obama’s pick for Agriculture secretary “cautious” and said he “could have done better, much better.” According to John Nichols, USDA is far more than a farming overseer. Rather, the agency “is a key player when it comes to energy policy,” its Forest Service “administers almost 300,000 square miles of national forests and grasslands,
and the agency’s secretary is “often a definitional player in trade debates.” Nichols reports that the USDA has a $97 billion annual budget and
some 110,000 employees—“more than the departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy combined.” While stating that Vilsack is a “capable administrator with the right partisan credentials,” Nichols also observes, “[f]amily farm activists, fair-trade campaigners and advocates for organic foods were regularly disappointed by the stands he took.” See The Nation, December 17, 2008.
