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Time for Harkin and Democrats to walk the talk on opposing Dorr appointment
By Al Krebs
(Aug. 9, 2002 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- It is time for Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Sen Tom Harkin
(Dem.-Iowa) and his fellow Democrats on that committee to walk the talk.
When Harkin's committee sent Bush nominee Tom Dorr's name to be USDA
Undersecretary for Rural Development out of committee to the full Senate
with "no recommendation" Harkin and his Democrat Party colleagues warned
administration officials against giving Dorr a temporary appointment to
the USDA job, an action that presidents sometimes take during
congressional recesses to bypass the Senate confirmation process.
Were that to happen during this month's recess, Harkin said, he would
reopen his committee's investigation of Dorr's finances and issue
subpoenas to the USDA for records that Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman
refused earlier to turn over to the panel.
Now that the Bush administration, in disregarding the Senate's power to
"advise and consent," has indeed appointed the unqualified Dorr to the
USDA post it is time for Harkin to keep his word and in effect hang Dorr
out to dry.
At the same time, however, it is also time for those who care about the
future of family farm agriculture and rural America to hold Harkin and
his Democrat committee members feet to the fire. The fight against
Dorr's nomination is a defining moment in the struggle to maintain the
culture in agriculture for it is not just opposing one man's job
appointment, but it is a battle against agribusiness commodity group
leaders' stubborn support for Dorr who has heaped nothing but contempt
on the public's heartfelt and scientific concern for the future of
family farm agriculture and rural America.
As Iowa farmer George Naylor rightfully points out: "It was clear to
all, even the Republican members of the Committee, that the Tom Dorr the
public came to know would have no chance to be confirmed by the Senate.
His anti-family farm vision of rural America including his admiration of
corporate hog production in North Carolina, his disparaging remarks
about ethnic and religious diversity, and, last but not least, the
official record of his cheating taxpayers by fraudulently avoiding farm
program payment limitations surely would make no one proud of his
appointment."
Clearly, if Harkin and the Democrat Party members of his committee do
not follow up on their promise for a thorough and complete investigation
and exposure of Tom Dorr they, like Dorr, will have become part of the
problem rather than part of the solution, a fact that family farmers
from their respective states should not let go unnoticed in the coming
Senate elections. | |
