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Perdue, Trump want USDA leaders confirmed by Senate soon

President Trump has been in office almost seven months, and many key appointments to government agencies have not been confirmed.  Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue talked about that in an exclusive interview with Brownfield.

Perdue says he wants USDA leadership positions filled sooner and not later, but tells Brownfield there are obstacles.  “Unfortunately, the minority side in the Senate has chosen to slow-walk these confirmation processes.”

Perdue says he’s the only Senate-confirmed person in the USDA today, but not because they’ve been slow to choose nominees.  “We’ve got great people identified that the President has appointed and nominated, and we need to get them on as soon as possible.  It now appears that it will even be after the August recess, September, possibly even October.”

He says they’re blessed to have good career people helping farmers at USDA, Rural Development, and FSA, but he needs his new leaders in place.  “From the President to the Secretary down means a whole lot about what our priorities are and how we focus, so to some degree, the job is getting done but the job can get done better.”

Perdue says it’s a huge disadvantage to not have nominees getting Senate confirmation since there’s a lot of work to do.

Perdue was the last person selected by President Trump for his cabinet and was confirmed April 24th.