Donald Trump launches his second term with what is promised to be a blizzard of executive orders and mass deportations, while Brooke Rollins gets her confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee this week.
Based on Agri-Pulse interviews with Ag Committee members, Rollins is expected to face questioning at Thursday’s hearing on a wide range of issues, including biofuels policy and avian flu.
Trump takes the oath of office at noon Monday and is expected to quickly issue dozens of executive orders attacking issues from energy to immigration. He will be setting the stage for the more laborious tasks to come of actually rolling back Biden-era regulations and carrying out his pledge to implement mass deportations of people who are in the country illegally.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the roundup of migrants is set to start Tuesday in Chicago. However, the Washington Post reported later that Trump officials hadn't decided to target Chicago.
Asked Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press if Congress would fund Trump’s immigration agenda, House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “I cannot think of a better dollar-for-dollar investment than to restore the security and the safety of the country.
“We've had a wide-open border for four years, and millions upon millions of illegal persons. We have dangerous, illegals in the country. Criminals who have already committed crimes here, violent crimes against the American citizens. The best thing we can do is return those people from where they came.”
Johnson also was pressed to say what Congress is going to do to lower food prices. “Well, it's a complex collection of legislation because we've got to unwind and fix everything. … I mean, everything's a mess. So, it's not just one switch that you flip back on. It's a number of them and we have to make it all work together.”
Senate Republicans will be moving ahead this week with trying to get Trump’s cabinet in place as quickly as possible. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will meet Monday after the inaugural ceremonies to vote on the nomination of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state. The Senate Finance Committee will consider Treasury Secretary-designate Scott Bessant on Tuesday, and Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, will get a vote in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., had hoped to have Rollins on the same fast track for USDA, but her hearing had to be delayed from Jan. 15 to this Thursday because of paperwork lags.
Rollins would bring unusual background to USDA
Rollins is somewhat of a blank slate on agriculture policy, and she also comes from an unconventional background for an agriculture secretary; the last four secretaries going back to 2005 have been former governors.
Rollins led a libertarian-oriented think tank in Texas before serving in advisory roles in the Trump White House. She has spent the last four years heading the America First Policy Institute, a group composed of Trump administration veterans. Rollins earned $1.05 million in the AFPI position, according to the financial disclosure report she filed with the Office of Government Ethics.
Energy policy is likely to come up in the hearing, in part because the Texas Public Policy Foundation she ran advocates for fossil fuels and has been critical of federal biofuel policy. She also has significant oil and gas investments, according to her financial disclosure.
There has been no sign of opposition yet to her nomination.
Rollins as well as Boozman and the committee’s top Democrat, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have all told Agri-Pulse that biofuel issues are likely to be a topic of discussion Thursday.
Rollins, who Agri-Pulse spotted walking through the U.S. Capitol building last week said her individual meetings with senators had continued to be productive and she’s looking forward to her hearing.
“The breadth of USDA is really remarkable and it touches every American’s life,” Rollins said. “We’re going to have a good conversation.”
Committee Republican Roger Marshall told Agri-Pulse, Rollins is “a great communicator, so we expect her out there to be talking about record high input costs, low commodity prices, record drop in net farm income under Joe Biden."
“So what can we do different? Can she stress how important interest rates are to farmers and as we drive down the price of oil and gas, how important that’s going to be to farmers as well. So we’ll try to give her a platform to talk about all those things.”
First-term Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said she wanted to highlight specialty crops during the hearing. Slotkin said specialty crops seemed to be “on every page of the farm bill" while her predecessor, Debbie Stabenow, was the committee's top Democrat.
“I don’t want to lose that just because we have a new administration,” Slotkin said. “The farm safety net and all kinds of things that are important to small and medium-sized farmers.”
Slotkin said she also plans to ask about the avian flu outbreak, which she and Rollins have already discussed privately.
“She’s going to be responsible for containing that outbreak,” Slotkin said. “Michigan’s done a good job of doing it so I want to hear from her what she’s going to do to continue that.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said he had a range of issues he plans to bring up during the hearing. “I'm focused on protecting Georgia growers and protecting nutrition benefits, and I push back on folks who say we got to choose one or the other,” Warnock said.
In general, Boozman said the committee will be interested to hear about Rollins’ priorities and the key things to address in agriculture.
“I think really everybody just wants to understand better her view of agriculture and how she can be helpful,” Boozman said. “We’re in a situation where the biggest drop of income in the past two years ever, we have a huge trade imbalance now for the last couple years for the first time. So all of these headwinds … all these things are staring us in the face. What’s going to be her answer? Where does she see us going to solve some of these problems?”
Citing the confirmation hearings this week for Rollins and other nominees, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats would continue this week “to hold the president-elect’s nominees’ feet to the fire, to show the American people who Donald Trump’s nominees are really fighting for.
“Will Donald Trump’s nominees focus on cutting costs, or will they be more interested in cutting sweetheart deals for big businesses? Will they protect our communities, or will they focus more on protecting special interests? Will they serve middle-class and working families, or will they serve the swamp? It seems all too likely the wrong answer on each of these questions might be very, very real.”
Wildfires get House focus
Meanwhile, the House this week will consider the Fix Our Forests Act, which aims to speed up environmental reviews for forest management and wildfire treatment projects. The debate comes as firefighters have continued to battle the fires that have raged this month in the Los Angeles area. The fires led to a war of words between Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The bill passed the House last September, but not the Senate. It would allow fireside management projects like thinning, prescribed burning, hazard tree removal to occur under existing categorical exclusions from the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires agencies to analyze the impacts of their potential actions on the environment. Categorical exclusion would also be granted for vegetation management, facility inspection and management plans for utility line rights-of-way, according to a section-by-section summary.
It also prohibits courts from "holding unlawful, setting aside, limiting, delaying, staying, vacating, or enjoining a fire-shed management project, unless the project poses a risk of proximate and substantial environmental harm and no other equitable remedy is available,” according to the summary.
In the Meet the Press interview on Sunday, Johnson declined to commit to providing disaster aid to California without conditions attached.
“Listen, there are national disasters. I'm from Louisiana. We're prone to that. We understand how these things work. But then there's also human error. And when the state and local officials make foolish policy decisions that make the disaster exponentially worse, we need to factor that in,” he said.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EST):
Monday, Jan. 20
Federal holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Clean Fuels Conference 2025, through Thursday, San Diego.
Noon – Swearing in of Donald Trump as the 47th president.
3:15 p.m. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting to consider the nomination of Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, 116 Dirksen.
Tuesday, Jan. 21
10:15 a.m. – Senate Finance Committee meeting to consider the nomination of Scott Bessent to be treasury secretary, 215 Dirksen.
4 p.m. – House Rules Committee meeting to consider the Fix our Forests Act, H-313 Capitol.
Wednesday, Jan. 22
9 a.m. – Hinrich Foundation forum, “Rethinking free trade: The new rules of global integration.”
9:30 a.m. – Wilson Center forum, “Strategic Competition in the Second Trump Administration.”
10 a.m. – House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, “Restoring Immigration Enforcement in America,” 2141 Rayburn.
10 a.m. – Senate Budget Committee hearing on the nomination of Russell Vought to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, 608 Dirksen.
10 a.m. – Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee meeting to consider the nomination of Sean Duffy to be secretary of transportation, 253 Russell.
Thursday, Jan. 23
9:15 a.m. – Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting to consider the nomination of Lee Zeldin to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, 406 Dirksen.
10 a.m. – House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on water resources bills, 1324 Longworth.
10 a.m. – Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on the nomination of Brooke Rollins to be secretary of agriculture, 106 Dirksen.
Noon – Farmdoc webinar, "What to Expect from the South American Crop Season."
Noon – Cato Institute forum, "Principles for Tax Reform in the 119th Congress," 2044 Rayburn.
Friday, Jan. 24
8:30 a.m. – USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.
9 a.m. – USDA releases monthly Food Price Outlook.
Oliver Ward contributed to this report.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
