The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spotlight still seems to find ex-Gov. Perdue
Under Trump, even USDA head is given a higher profile.
Secretary of agriculture is normally not one of the higher-profile slots in the Cabinet. For instance, there’s no television network drama called “Mr. Secretary” about the nation’s ag chief.
Somehow, though, Sonny Perdue has been popping into the spotlight.
Right now, the former Georgia governor has riled some U.S. Department of Agriculture employees, congressional Democrats and scientific groups with his plan to move two branches — the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service — out of Washington to Kansas City. (At one time, two Georgia cities were in contention for those agencies and the hundreds of federal employees that go with them.)
Opponents have said the moves will lead to a brain drain, thus harming federally funded scientific research. Perdue says it will save the government money and bring the USDA closer to the farmers it serves.
The USDA Office of Inspector General recently determined that the move may be in conflict with a 2018 federal spending law because Perdue made his decision without first obtaining congressional approval. The inspector general report also says the authority ultimately lies in Perdue’s hands.
So, mixed signals? Not to the USDA. “Since the inspector general affirms the department has the legal authority and we do not agree with the unconstitutional budgetary provision, this case is closed,” the USDA said.
Some of that feared brain drain could occur for other reasons, though.
One of the nation’s leading climate change scientists, Lewis Ziska, quit the department, saying the Trump administration tried to bury a groundbreaking study involving climate change. Ziska found that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused a loss of nutrients in rice. That’s a big deal for about 600 million people who depend on rice for most of their calories.
Politico reported that Ziska “was alarmed when department officials not only questioned the findings” of his study, “but also tried to minimize media coverage of the paper.”
Ziska described the department, according to Politico, as being “in constant fear of (President Donald Trump) and Secretary Sonny Perdue’s open skepticism about broadly accepted climate science.”
Trade battleground is farmland: This past week’s escalation in the trade war with China could batter and bruise the nation’s agricultural sector, one of Georgia’s leading farmers says.
China, responding to a Trump administration move to label it as a currency manipulator, announced that it would stop buying U.S. agricultural goods.
Zippy Duvall, a farmer from Greensboro and the head of the American Farm Bureau Federation, described China’s decision as a “body blow.”
Georgia could certainly feel the pain. Agriculture, with an economic impact of $73.3 billion, is Georgia’s largest industry, accounting for 1 in 7 jobs. And China is the state’s No. 1 trading partner.
Top exports that could be affected: cotton, poultry and wood pulp.
Grounds for argument: Erick Erickson, the conservative host on News 95.5 and AM 750 WSB, has a theory about why Karen Handel lost her re-election bid last year in the 6th Congressional District: National Republicans let her down.
“In 2018, outside national Republican groups told all of the candidates in Georgia, including Brian Kemp and Geoff Duncan and Karen Handel and Rob Woodall: ‘Don’t worry about the suburbs, we’ve got your ground game.’ They never showed up,” Erickson told the crowd at The Resurgent Gathering, a conference for grassroots conservatives.
“It was a disaster made by the outside Republican groups who lied to the president and lied to the candidates,” Erickson said. That’s not quite the way other Georgia Republicans have described Handel’s defeat in November at the hands of Democrat Lucy McBath. They have said that the state GOP, following Kemp’s strategy, pursued rural voters over suburban voters. It was the same course Donald Trump took in winning Georgia in the 2016 presidential race.
Handel, now one of a group of Republican candidates vying to recapture the 6th District, wasn’t interested in discussing theories.
“In regards to ’18, let me make something abundantly clear,” Handel told the Gathering audience. “Having a Governor (Stacey) Abrams was a nonstarter. So if we had to have a little pause to get Brian Kemp elected, that’s fine.”