VILSACK CONFIRMED FOR 2ND STINT AS AG CHIEF
Thomas-Greenfield confirmed as U.S. ambassador to U.N.
The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary, his second run at the Cabinet post, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, spent eight years leading the same Department of Agriculture for former President Barack Obama’s entire administration. He was confirmed Tuesday on a 92-7 vote.
“We’re going to be a USDA that represents and serves all Americans,” Vilsack said after the vote. “I am optimistic about the future and believe our brightest days are ahead.”
In his testimony, Vilsack, 70, heavily endorsed boosting climate-friendly agricultural industries such as the creation of biofuels, saying, “Agriculture is one of our first and best ways to get some wins“on climate change.
He proposed “building a rural economy based on biomanufacturing” and “turning agricultural waste into a variety of products.” He also pledged to work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to “spur the industry” on biofuels.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield (left) and Tom Vilsack were confirmed Tuesday by the Senate.
With systemic racial inequity now a nationwide talking point, Vilsack also envisioned creating an “equity task force” inside the department. Its job, he said, would be to identify what he called “intentional or unintentional barriers“that prevent or discourage farmers of color from properly accessing federal assistance programs.
Vilsack also heavily backed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as food stamps, or SNAP — as a key instrument in helping the country’s most vulnerable families survive and recover from the pandemic era. His Trump-era predecessor, Sonny Perdue, had sought to purge hundreds of thousands of people from the SNAP-recipient lists.
Vilsack received minimal pushback or criticism during confirmation hearings.
One of the “no” votes came from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Sanders later said that Vilsack would “be fine” but he would have liked “somebody a little bit more vigorous in terms of protecting family farms and taking on corporate agriculture.”
Meanwhile, the Senate voted 78-20 to confirm Thomas-Greenfield to the U.N. ambassabor post, which will be a Cabinet-level position.
Her confirmation was a victory for the Biden administration as it seeks to re-engage with the world body after four years of President Donald Trump’s “America First” posture left the U.S. isolated internationally.
Thomas-Greenfield, a retired 35-year veteran of the foreign service who resigned during the Trump administration, will be the third African American, and the second African American woman, to hold the job. Her confirmation was hailed by Democrats and advocates of the United Nations, who had lamented the Trump administration’s unilateral approach to international affairs.
“This confirmation sends a message that the United States is back and that our foreign service is back,” said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., who chairs a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health and global human rights. “We as a country and as a world are safer with Linda Thomas-Greenfield serving as the United States ambassador to the United Nations.”
Republicans who opposed her said she was soft on China and would not stand up for U.S. principles at the United Nations. Thomas-Greenfield had rejected those concerns during her confirmation hearing, telling senators that a 2019 speech she gave to the Chinese-funded Confucius Institute had been a mistake and was not intended to be an endorsement of Chinese government policies.
In the speech, she had praised China’s $1 trillion Belt and Road global infrastructure program in Africa and called for “a win-win-win situation” where the U.S. and China would promote good governance and the rule of law.