Senate confirms Rollins to lead USDA; Thune expresses confidence in her ability to do the job

February 14, 2025:

The United States Senate confirmed Brooke Rollins at the nation’s new Secretary of Agriculture with a 72-28 vote on Thursday (Feb. 13, 2025).

South Dakota Senator and Senate Majority Leader John Thune called Rollins a “policy wonk with a farmer’s heart” who understands their needs and can “deliver results.” Thune listed four areas she’s committed to.

“First, getting disaster and economic aid out the door into the hands of farmers. Second, getting the bird flu and other animal disease outbreaks under control. Third, getting the farm bill done. And finally, revitalizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to focus on its core mission and put America and American agriculture first.”

Senate Ag Chair John Boozman praised Rollins’ strong farming background, rural Texas roots and executive experience in Texas and Washington.

“Her executive leadership during the first Trump Administration and her regular collaboration with President Trump make her uniquely qualified to serve in this position and advocate for family farms.”

That’s likely to include the president’s order to downsize agencies and Rollins’ commitment to deal with tariff retaliation against U.S. agriculture products.

Meanwhile, Thune said, he’s taking another run at eliminating the burden on farmers commonly known as the ‘death tax.’

“There should be a limit to how many times the government can tax you. The money you leave at your death has been taxed by the government at least once, which makes the ‘death tax’ double-taxation.”

Thune won a doubling of the estate tax exclusion in 2017, but with other Republicans, argues death should not be a taxable event that forces heirs to sell off part or all of their farms to pay the levy.

Additionally,

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided (Feb. 13, 2025) this information below about newly confirmed Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Brooke Leslie Rollins is originally from Glen Rose, Texas. Most recently, Rollins served as the Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). During President Trump’s first administration, she was the Director of the Domestic Policy Council and Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives in the White House. She also previously served as Director of the Office of American Innovation. In these roles, she developed and managed the transformational domestic policy agenda of the Trump Administration, leading to historic achievements for the American people.

Rollins graduated with honors from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development and was the first female to be elected student body president. After earning her Juris Doctor with honors at the University of Texas School of Law, she served as Governor Rick Perry’s policy director before running the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) for 15 years. At TPPF, Rollins elevated a small policy organization to a national force and redefined the possibilities for a state-based think tank — setting the model and aspiration for AFPI. Rollins and her husband, Mark, call Fort Worth, Texas home, and spend a large majority of their free time taxiing their four very active children to baseball games, cattle shows, piano lessons, and Aggie football games.

Courtesy photo.

February 13, 2025:

Brooke Rollins won confirmation as the new Secretary of Agriculture by a 72-28 Senate vote. Several U.S. agriculture groups congratulated the Texan on her confirmation.

“America’s pork producers are eager to work with Secretary Rollins to fix the multitude of problems caused by California’s Prop 12 and ensure farm families have reasonable policies to pass down our farms to future generations,” says NPPC President Lori Stevermer.

Farm Credit Council President and CEO Christy Seyfert says it’s crucial to have leaders who understand the unique needs of agriculture, and they look forward to working with Rollins in good times and bad.

NASDA CEO Ted McKinney congratulated Rollins on taking over as the 33rd Secretary of Agriculture, saying, “The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture is ready to work with the new Secretary on increasing economic opportunities for farmers, ranchers, and food producers, as well as getting a new farm bill approved.”

January 27, 2025:

During her United States Senate confirmation hearing as President Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins suggested more farm payments may be the administration’s answer to another trade war. Rollins agreed with the senators that farmers want trade not aid, but if President Trump’s tariffs lead to more trade wars, she says there could be more Market Facilitation Payments.

“We are prepared to execute something similar if approved, if confirmed, but also working with the White House to ensure that we can close those holes for our farmers and ranchers.”

Rollins said one of her top priorities will be sending out $10 billion in disaster payments Congress ok’d in December 2024.

“A fast and furious effort to ensure that we move that economic aid out.”

Another priority for Rollins is trade.

“Last four years, we have almost a 45-billion-dollar trade deficit for our Ag products, so a key will be expanding access to these markets across the country.”

On the topic of work requirements for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, Rollins is sticking by the republican party’s stance.

“I do believe in work requirements, I do think they’re important.”

Rollins has long been a defender of fossil fuels and family oil investments, but says she also supports the use of biofuels.

“I will be a Secretary for all agriculture. It is really important to me that we continue to defend, elevate, and honor all sources of fuel.”

Although production agriculture operations around the country rely on migrant labor, Rollins supports the President’s stance on mass deportation.

“The president’s vision of a secure border and a mass deportation at a scale that matters, is something that I support. I was his Domestic Policy Director in the last White House.”

Other priorities for Rollins include fighting animal diseases, modernizing USDA, supporting rural communities, cutting red tape and helping Congress pass a new farm bill.

Her confirmation as the 33rd Secretary of USDA is expected to be approved.

JANUARY 22, 2025:

Long-time USDA Chief Information Officer Gary Washington was named the Acting Secretary of the USDA.

Fed Scoop says while the newly inaugurated Trump administration is waiting for Senate confirmation of its initial nominations for Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials, one of the first actions by the White House on Monday was appointing temporary leaders in several departments. Washington has been the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s CIO for almost seven years and a government employee since 1997. Washington was also the CIO for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Washington spent five years in private industry as well as ten years as a Computer Operator and a Command Control Specialist in the U.S. Air Force. He will handle the administrative duties of the office while Brooke Rollins’ nomination moves through the Senate. Her confirmation hearing is scheduled for this Thursday (Jan. 23, 2025) before the Senate Ag Committee.

NOVEMBER 25, 2024:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday (Nov. 23, 2024) that he will nominate former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his agriculture secretary, the last of his picks to lead executive agencies and another choice from within his established circle of advisers and allies.

The nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans when Trump takes office Jan. 20, 2025. Rollins would succeed Tom Vilsack, President Joe Biden’s agriculture secretary who oversees the sprawling agency that controls policies, regulations and aid programs related to farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition.

Rollins, an attorney who graduated from Texas A&M University with an undergraduate degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. Rollins previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She worked as a litigation attorney in Dallas and also clerked for a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas after earning her law degree from the University of Texas.

The pick completes Trump’s selection of the heads of executive branch departments, just two and a half weeks after the former president won the White House once again. Several other picks that are traditionally Cabinet-level remain, including U.S. Trade Representative and head of the small business administration.

Rollins, speaking on the Christian talk show “Family Talk” earlier this year, said Trump was an “amazing boss” and confessed that she thought in 2015, during his first presidential campaign that he would not last as a candidate in a crowded Republican primary field.

“I was the person that said, ‘Oh, Donald Trump is not going to go more than two or three weeks in the Republican primary. This is to up his TV show ratings. And then we’ll get back to normal,’” she said. “Fast forward a couple of years, and I am running his domestic policy agenda.”

Trump didn’t offer many specifics about his agriculture policies during the campaign, but farmers could be affected if he carries out his pledge to impose widespread tariffs. During the first Trump administration, countries like China responded to Trump’s tariffs by imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports like the corn and soybeans routinely sold overseas. Trump countered by offering massive multibillion-dollar aid to farmers to help them weather the trade war.

President Abraham Lincoln founded the USDA in 1862, when about half of all Americans lived on farms. The USDA oversees multiple support programs for farmers; animal and plant health; and the safety of meat, poultry and eggs that anchor the nation’s food supply. Its federal nutrition programs provide food to low-income people, pregnant women and young children. And the agency sets standards for school meals.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has vowed to strip ultraprocessed foods from school lunches and to stop allowing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries from using food stamps to buy soda, candy or other so-called junk foods. But it would be the USDA, not HHS, that would be responsible for enacting those changes.

In addition, HHS and USDA will work together to finalize the 2025-2030 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They are due late next year, with guidance for healthy diets and standards for federal nutrition programs.