Perdue’s paperwork has yet to technically arrive in the Senate, which means lawmakers have been unable to officially vet Perdue. The holdup appears to be with the FBI, which is conducting a comprehensive background check that’s customary for all Cabinet nominees, according to two Republican senators and a handful of aides in the Senate and administration.
Still unclear is what is causing the slowness or whether any red flags have been raised.
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/03/06/sonnywatch-why-perdues-confirmation-hearing-is-still-tbd/He also has a lot of questions to answer - and this McClatchy article suggests a list of them
Perdue needs to answer some questions before he becomes ag secretary
March 7, 2017
By Adam Diamond
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Nonetheless, Perdue’s record demands closer attention. He is an adamant climate change denier. As governor, he refused to support a resolution put forth by African-American state legislators apologizing for Georgia’s support for slavery. He also has close ties to agribusiness. As governor of Georgia, for example, he oversaw a dramatic expansion of factory farming, particularly in the poultry sector. His tenure saw overall farm sales go from $4.9 billion in 2002 to $9.3 billion in 2012, while the number of farms in Georgia actually declined by 17 percent (compared with a 1 percent national decline).
Adam Diamond By Jeff Watts Courtesy American University
While in office, he blocked efforts to regulate factory farms, while at the same time overseeing a $155 million expansion of Perdue Farms (no relation) in the state and blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts under President George W. Bush to enforce the Clean Air Act. And, during his two terms as governor, he received more than $330,000 in campaign contributions from agribusiness companies, including Monsanto. He was named the 2009 Governor of the Year by the GMO lobby group Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
Under Perdue’s tenure as governor, major cutbacks were made in offices such as the Consumer Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Agriculture, which saw its budget slashed by more than a quarter. Saving money is not to be criticized. Unless, of course, it comes at the expense of public safety. In a response to a salmonella outbreak at the Peanut Corporation of America’s Georgia plant, which killed nine people and sickened more than 700, officials stated that resource constraints limited both the frequency and scope of food safety inspections in the state.
During the august days of the Obama Administration, policies were approved to protect some of the above concerns. The Farmer Fair Practices Rules, for example, would help restore a measure of balance between farmers and their buyers. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the new regulation targets “the most harmful practices hurting farmers and clearly outlines common sense protections to restore fairness and reduce the burden for farmers seeking justice under the Packers and Stockyards Act.” Based on Perdue’s history of support for factory farms, it is likely he will reject this regulation, despite the USDA’s estimate that it would add no more than 1/100 of a cent to the per-pound price of meat.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article136755458.html
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