WASHINGTON

Agriculture Secretary nominee Sonny Perdue finally faces the Senate on Thursday

Bartholomew D Sullivan

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue will finally appear for a confirmation hearing on his nomination to be Secretary of agriculture Thursday after reaching an agreement with the Office of Government Ethics to avoid conflicts of interest.

Former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue attends a meeting on Capitol Hill on Feb. 1, 2017.

The Senate Agriculture Committee is taking up the nomination 73 days after President Trump made his final Cabinet pick on the day before he was inaugurated. The lengthy delay in his consideration followed his decision to take steps to avoid the appearance of or real conflicts of interest. As governor, Perdue declined to place his assets in a blind trust. Perdue was the subject of 13 complaints to the Georgia State Ethics Commission while he was governor, including two in which fines were imposed.

Perdue, 70, will have his family wealth preservation trust restructured so that he will have no say in its investments.

“I will not participate personally or substantially in any particular matter in which I know I have a financial interest directly and predictably affected by the matter,” his agreement says, without first obtaining a waiver or qualifying for a regulatory exemption.

Perdue still hadn’t had a confirmation hearing scheduled six weeks after he was nominated, prompting speculation about problems with an FBI background check. Trump has blamed Senate Democrats for not allowing him a full Cabinet, but Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., couldn’t set a hearing date until required paperwork was filed with the committee last week.

Perdue and Alexander Acosta, Trump’s second choice for Labor secretary after the first withdrew, are the last awaiting Senate confirmation. Even Acosta’s hearing Wednesday precedes Perdue’s.

The hearing comes a week after the Trump White House released a proposal to reduce the Department of Agriculture budget by $4.7 billion, or 21% below this year’s level. The budget “blueprint” said the administration will reduce funding for the USDA’s statistical capabilities and eliminate the water and wastewater loan and grant program, saving $498 million over this year’s level. It also proposed eliminating the Rural Business and Cooperative Service for a $95 million saving.

Agricultural commodity industry associations from cotton to chickens reacted mostly favorably to the Perdue nomination, although some were disappointed that it took so long for the then-president-elect to make his selection. Pundits said he was telegraphing that the rural America that drove his victory may be a low priority. Perdue would come into office following some lean years for the nation’s farmers, who have seen a 50% drop in net farm income since a record high in 2013.

Some noted that Perdue’s background in agriculture — including a business involved in grain trading — will give him the opportunity to hit the ground running. He received the endorsement of his Democratic predecessor, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, who said that as a former governor, Perdue “knows full well the opportunities and challenges that exist in rural America.” Vilsack also noted that, as a Georgian, Perdue appreciates “the importance of maintaining healthy forests, so he will be supportive of the Forest Service.”

Perdue also knows livestock: His 1971 doctorate in veterinary medicine is from the University of Georgia, where he played football as a walk-on for the Bulldogs. He later served in the U.S. Air Force, where he rose to the rank of captain. In the state Senate, he started off as a Democrat but switched to the GOP in 1998. He was Georgia’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction when he took office in 2003.

Then-governor Sonny Perdue, right, is joined by Tom Price — then a state senator, and now Trump's Health and Human Services secretary — as he speaks at a press conference in Atlanta in this Jan. 27, 2003, file photo.

Others are critical of Perdue for receiving $278,000 in USDA federal farm subsidies from 1996 to 2004. The Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based think tank that keeps track of agricultural subsidy payments and advocates against them, has raised questions about his judgment. It called attention to a state tax bill he signed into law in 2005 that provided him with a $100,000 tax break involving acreage he purchased in Florida.

EWG agriculture policy director Colin O’Neill said that, although Trump has promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington, Perdue “is mired in ethical lapses, self-dealing and back-room deals that raise troubling questions about his fitness to run the department.”

Professor Daniel A. Sumner, director of the University of California-Davis Agricultural Issues Center and an economist, said as someone who recognizes the importance of trade for agriculture, he was encouraged that Perdue’s businesses have been involved in international trade.

But as someone who finds weakness in most rationales for trade barriers and farm subsidies, Sumner said he would welcome Perdue re-evaluating those programs run by the USDA. Sumner also noted that most of the department’s budget goes to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program most know as food stamps that provides financial aid to poor people. He said Perdue should consider the policy rationale for the agriculture department continuing to administer it.

Shortly after Trump took office, the online records maintained by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were removed from its website, to the distress of some animal rights groups. The move, which was in the works in the closing days of the Obama administration, prompted demands by 119 members of Congress from both parties that it be restored. The records have been used to shed light on the treatment of animals used in medical and cosmetics research, roadside zoos, circuses and puppy mills but were removed in response to litigation, a USDA official said. Some of the records have been restored and all of them are accessible through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Perdue has declined through a transition official to address the controversy but can be expected to be asked about it at the hearing. He may also be asked about his thoughts on stepped-up immigration enforcement, which some farmers, particularly in California, are concerned will result in labor shortages.

While he is not expected to need the extra boost in order to be confirmed, Perdue has the unique advantage of a family tie in the Senate itself. Former Dollar General CEO and Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., is his cousin.