Scoop: Torres Small top contender for USDA No. 2

QUICK FIX

— The search is on for a new No. 2 official at USDA following Jewel Bronaugh’s resignation last week. Current Undersecretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small is a top contender for the role, according to people familiar with the conversations.

— FIRST IN MA: Two powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill are calling on FDA Commissioner Robert Califf to institute “significant reforms” at the agency’s human foods division, following the baby formula crisis and other breakdowns. It comes as the FDA is poised to unveil its response to a recent review that found widespread turmoil within the program.

— Rep. G.T. Thompson has a tightrope to walk as he tries to pass a farm bill. We broke down some of the biggest fights he will have to navigate this year, including the always contentious nutrition and climate titles.

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Driving the Day

USDA’S DEPUTY SECRETARY SEARCH: As POLITICO first reported, Jewel Bronaugh resigned from USDA’s No. 2 role late last week, citing family reasons. Bronaugh said she’s planning to officially leave the role in the coming weeks. That doesn’t give President Joe Biden much time to tap a replacement.

Some USDA officials have worried about the number of staff under Bronaugh, and say they hope the next deputy secretary will be allowed more staff and a bigger portfolio that goes along with it.

Xochitl Torres Small, a current undersecretary at USDA, is a top contender to succeed Bronaugh, according to six people familiar with internal deliberations, including officials at the White House, USDA and on Capitol Hill.

Torres Small is a former Democratic member of Congress who flipped a red New Mexico district to blue in 2018. She currently leads USDA’s rural development branch.

A possible bipartisan pick: Should President Joe Biden tap Torres Small for the role, Republican and Democratic aides say they believe she would be confirmed with wide bipartisan support.

Biden himself endorsed Torres Small in her successful 2018 bid for Congress, saying she understood the struggles of rural America.

A USDA spokesperson, when asked about Torres Small being a top contender for the role, said it was “all just rumor and gossip.”

Co-workers weigh in: Torres Small is highly respected at USDA, according to several people familiar with the internal deliberations and who work closely with her at the department. One USDA official described Torres Small as “extremely well liked” and someone who would make “a great pick.”

In the wake of Bronaugh’s resignation, USDA has also pushed for Torres Small to appear at speaking appearances alongside Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Bipartisan ties: The former congresswoman has strong ties to both the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as a wide swath of Republicans on Capitol Hill — especially her former colleagues in the House who now control the majority. “Torres Small is a talented and capable administrator who works hard for rural America,” said House Ag member Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.).

Maybe more than any other USDA undersecretary, Torres Small can deftly explain the department’s real-world impact to lawmakers and other stakeholders, according to her current and former colleagues. That could be a key skill amid an ambitious oversight agenda from House Ag Republicans along with the upcoming farm bill negotiations.

“She is the most talented undersecretary at USDA,” said a senior congressional aide familiar with the conversations.

Broadband role: Torres Small also has been leading the charge at USDA on rural broadband and could be a key advocate to explain the benefits of the investment to rural communities on the ground ahead of the 2024 presidential election, as Biden weighs a reelection bid and the while administration is eager to roll out more broadband funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law and other packages.

Confirmation process: Whoever Biden picks for the role will have a leg up in the confirmation process compared to his nominees during the last Congress. Democrats’ new majority on the Senate Agriculture Committee will allow them to more easily approve nominations and push them to the floor.

FIRST IN MA: DURBIN AND DELAURO URGE FDA REFORMS: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), two long-time advocates for reforming FDA’s troubled foods program, are urging the FDA to enact a series of significant changes.

In a new letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf today, the pair write that: “American families cannot afford for FDA to continue its inadequate food oversight, especially when we now have a comprehensive analysis of how to start to remedy the agency’s food safety failures.”

Durbin and DeLauro implore Califf to take a series of significant reforms to address the shortfalls — including years of dysfunction and recent food safety breakdowns like the lingering infant formula crisis.

Key timing: The pair’s latest push comes as the FDA is set to unveil a “new vision” for the foods program Tuesday afternoon, following an internal review and the Reagan-Udall review that found “constant turmoil” inside the agency’s foods division. It follows years of dysfunction and recent food safety breakdowns, including the lingering infant formula crisis.

New urgency: Their letter also comes just after senior FDA foods official Frank Yiannas resigned last week, calling for structural reforms at FDA.

Reforms: Durbin and DeLauro, like Yiannas and a wide swath of food safety groups, are urging Califf to unify the human foods division “under a single leader” and restructure the leadership.

They’re also calling for Califf to “separate the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) into a ‘Center for Food Safety’ and a ‘Center for Nutrition;’ and directly integrate the Office of Regulatory Affairs’ (ORA) food-related inspectional and compliance responsibilities within the Human Foods Program.”

“Now is the time for real reform at FDA—it is not the time for half measures or more excuses,” the pair tell Califf.

New funding?: A lack of funding has plagued the foods division in recent years. It does appear likely that FDA will at least announce a new tranche of funding to bolster food safety efforts, including a nationally integrated food safety system and efforts to develop and maintain rapid response teams, according to recent FDA requests.

THOMPSON’S TIGHTROPE: Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) could soon become Washington’s hottest new dealmaker. He’ll have to get comfortable in that role as one of the top players in the only major legislative game in town: the 2023 farm bill, Garrett reports.

Context: The farm bill is shaping up to be one of the biggest legislative packages this Congress, and Thompson is responsible for getting the House side across the finish line. He’ll have to manage an insurgent right wing of his caucus demanding spending cuts and Democrats hoping to score climate wins and protect nutrition. Democrats control both the Senate and White House, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is a veteran of farm bill negotiations.

Tempering expectations: “He understands that he’s going to have to figure out how to navigate this because at the end of the day, they’re not going to get these things that they keep pushing for,” said former Democratic House Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson. “As long as they don’t pick a fight over food stamps, I think they’ll be fine.”

The biggest fights are likely to take place over the nutrition and conservation titles — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and climate. Thompson, meanwhile, fashions himself a dealmaker.

“I got folks on my side of the aisle, they vote against everything, but they didn’t vote against that because I brought them to the table,” Thompson said about a bill he got passed to modernize SNAP career and technical education. “The best legislation you can do is where you bring everybody to the table and we find out what we can agree upon.”

SNAP fight: Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who chairs the moderate Main Street Caucus, advocates for work or education requirements and different levels of eligibility geared at avoiding benefit cliffs in SNAP, two things that Republicans say would move recipients towards independence from benefits.

“I think us talking about eligibility and how eligibility is graduated may give us, along with work requirements … opportunity to help people graduate into work and off of nutrition assistance,” Johnson said.

Democrats meanwhile are drawing hard lines in the sand.

“They will not get a farm bill if they screw around with SNAP,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a fierce advocate for nutrition programs, said in response to Johnson’s proposal. “They say these things and then they make proposals that throw people off the program … come March [the benefit] will only be two bucks on average per person, per meal. Come on Dusty, you try and live on that.”

Thompson leans on his own experience to convey his opinion on SNAP. His family was on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children when he was a young adult — an experience he says guides him.

He says his approach to SNAP will be “principled,” and that it represents a “value in rural America that neighbors help neighbors in need.” These principles are “flexibility and innovation,” but also “independence” and “integrity” — or getting recipients off SNAP and back into the workforce and safeguarding it from fraud.

Climate fight: Prominent Republicans are hoping to cut climate spending while Democrats are doing all they can to protect it.

“There is so much money being thrown into climate change,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), who last year was the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee’s Conservation Subcommittee, said when asked about where budget cuts should come from. “CO2 is not responsible. Especially American-produced CO2, I mean we’re a tiny part of the whole thing.”

About 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to agriculture, according to the Agriculture Department.

It’s also a critical issue for House Democrats like Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), who models her ideal farm bill on a blueprint drawn up by the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition — a group of Democrats focused on climate issues — and Stabenow.

Thompson isn’t as critical as some of his Republican colleagues on climate, but is critical of Democrats pushing to make climate a central focus of agriculture. He wants to maintain a hands-off approach by keeping conservation programs voluntary and continuing to boost agricultural production.

Farmers “natural land solutions sequester about 6.1 gigatons of carbon … Can we strengthen those practices? Absolutely,” Thompson said.

Row Crops

— Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) sent a letter to Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting a briefing on avian influenza. The letter comes in response to a rapid increase in egg prices, which has been caused in part by bird flu.

— Debt ceiling negotiations are struck in limbo, as House Republicans demand severe spending cuts without saying where they’d start. Pretty soon, though, their hands will be forced, reports our Caitlin Emma.

— Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson told two state House panels on Wednesday that his department is compiling a $1 billion priority list of possible land deals that will be ready if the state continues providing money for conservation easements, our Bruce Ritchie reports.

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