Labor Secretary Nominated and Farm Bill Provision

Labor Secretary Nominated and Farm Bill Provision

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
From the Ag Information Network, I'm Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.

President Trump has nominated Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor after Andy Puzder withdrew his nomination last Wednesday.

Acosta is the current dean of the law school at Florida International University, where he has been since July of 2009. If confirmed, the 48-year old of Cuban immigrants, would be the first Hispanic in Trump's slate of cabinet officials.

He also served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department.

The Department of Labor has jurisdiction over many labor programs important to agriculture, including the H-2A program for ag workers.

**Dogged by charges he'd employed an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper, his stance on immigration and other issues, Andy Puzder withdrew his nomination to be Secretary of Labor.

Puzder says the decision came about after careful consideration and discussions with his family, but that he was honored to have been considered by President Donald Trump.

His nomination hearing had been postponed four times.

**The next farm bill needs to provide an adequate safety net for farmers, whose income has fallen because of lower commodity prices.

That's according to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway on Wednesday at a hearing last week kicking off the 2018 farm bill process.

Conaway says Congress should "take to heart" the advice of former committee chairman Frank Lucas, of Oklahoma, who said during the last farm bill debate "that a safety net is supposed to be there to help farmers in bad times – not in good times."

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