The Senate Committee on Agriculture held a confirmation hearing on Thursday for former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, who has been tapped by the Trump Administration to be the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
Perdue, who served as Georgia’s governor from 2003 to 2011, was introduced by Georgia Representative David Scott (D) and former U.S. Senator from Georgia Saxby Chambliss, who both offered high praise for Perdue and expressed their strong recommendations that he be named Secretary of Agriculture. Perdue answered questions from the committee for approximately three hours on topics ranging from trade, the farm bill, crop insurance, and the challenges facing American agriculture.
When pressed on the recently proposed budget reduction of 21 percent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Perdue drew on his experiences in Georgia, saying “I view this budget similar to when, as governor, I got a revenue estimate I didn’t like – I didn’t like it, but you manage to it.”
Once the questioning period of the hearing was concluded, the Senate Agriculture Committee’s most powerful members said they would back Mr. Perdue.
“This is a nominee who not only knows agriculture, but cares about it,” said Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), who chairs the committee. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the committee’s ranking Democratic member, said that private conversations with Mr. Perdue had satisfied her questions on potential conflicts of interest and his views on climate change, and that she planned to support him, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The hearing is followed by a five-day period for other Senators to submit statements, and then a committee vote will be scheduled. “I think we will have a good vote, and we have told the leadership we would like to move him as soon as possible, and the leadership has agreed,” Senator Roberts said after the hearing, according to Politico. “This has been a very good hearing.”
