USDA Appointee Update

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Apr 11, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

The most recent news is the choice of Doug O'Brien as Kathleen Merrigan's Chief of Staff. O'Brien is one of the Sustainable Dozen advocated for on the Food Democracy Now petition, so that's two down and ten to go on our list of twelve. Also recently announced are the nominations of Michael Michener as Administrator of USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and Dave White as Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Someone who knows White and has worked with him said to me, "I don't think we could have found a better person to run the agency." Yay!

Last, recently confirmed by the Senate are Kathleen Merrigan as USDA's Deputy Secretary, Jim Miller as Under Secretary of the Farm Service & Foreign Agricultural Service, and Joe Leonard as assistant secretary for civil rights.

Details below...

From the University of Arkansas law blog's post:

From 1998-2000, Doug was a legal specialist on livestock marketing issues, working for GIPSA. He has also served as associate counsel with the Organization for Competitive Markets; and he clerked with Justice Jerry Larson of the Iowa Supreme Court.

That's great news to me, as we need major reform to make the livestock industry more competitive (only 4 companies slaughter more than 90% of all cattle in the U.S. right now). Doug continued to work on livestock issues as a counsel to the Senate Ag Committee during the 2002 farm bill debate. He's also served as a senior advisor to Governor Culver of Iowa on renewable energy issues and most recently as the Assistant Director of the Ohio Dept of Agriculture.

His job at the USDA will be as follows:

The Office of the Deputy Secretary oversees the USDA budget, which is $120 billion for fiscal year 2009. The Office manages the day-to-day operations of a department with vast responsibilities that include domestic farm programs, agricultural trade, nutrition assistance, food safety, agricultural marketing, conservation programs, energy, rural development, science and research, and National Forest lands.

Dave White: Dave White is a career employee working in conservation at the USDA. White has worked doing conservation work in Missouri, Montana, S. Carolina, and NRCS headquarters. He also assisted the Senate Ag committee with the conservation titles on the 2002 and 2008 farm bills. I've heard excellent things about him so I have high hopes for the job he'll do at NRCS!

Michael Michener: I don't want to be unfair to the guy but it doesn't speak favorably about him that the Corn Refiners put out a press release entitled Corn Refiners Association Applauds Michael Michener. Apparently, they are hoping Michener will expand America's free trade agenda and its corn exports abroad.

Michener has had some challenging jobs in the reent past, working in Iraq from 2005-2007, and working for USAID in the former Yugoslavia before that. His job, according to the USDA, will be as follows:

FAS has primary responsibility for USDA's international activities, including market development, international trade agreements and negotiations and the collection and analysis of market information. FAS also administers USDA's export credit guarantee and international food aid programs, and helps expand income and food availability in developing nations.

Merrigan: I've already written about Merrigan at length before here. She's fantastic!

Miller: The choice of Jim Miller was no doubt influenced by his good friend, Sen. Kent Conrad. I tried to transcribe Conrad's remarks about Miller at the confirmation hearing. I didn't get every word but I did my best. Conrad said:

This really is a proud moment to be here to strongly support the nomination of Jim Miller... I think everybody on this committee knows Jim very well already.

[Miller] served on the budget committee on my staff from 2004-2008. Did an absolutely superb job in every capacity... I think every member grew to respect his knowledge. He has truly an encyclopedic knowledge of agricultural policy... He knows the numbers... We often used his projections while we were awaiting more formal scoring because we knew Jim's numbers were right on track...

He is just an exceptional person. Able to get along with virtually everyone... cares about all farm and ranch families across America... precisely the kind of person we need in this posting... I strongly support Jim Miller for this position. I would support Jim Miller for any position. He is simply The Best.

From that kind of an introduction, I would say that there's no doubt that Miller is highly intelligent and likable but I wonder whether he's up to the task of delivering on Obama's promise of "Change." Kent Conrad isn't much of a "change" sort of guy so his endorsement might mean that Miller isn't either.

Leonard: From the confirmation hearing, he seemed like a good guy. He's got a difficult task ahead of him, fixing up the USDA's civil rights record, but I think they are doing well by appointing Leonard.