It’s unclear exactly where Brooke Rollins stands on agricultural policy, but her stance on fossil fuels and climate change is clear.
After weeks of speculation, President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that he would nominate Rollins to head the vast U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Rollins, an adviser to the Trump administration, was not on the list of candidates to run the agency, which oversees nutrition programs, agricultural subsidies, agricultural conservation and forestry programs. Under the Biden administration, climate change programs have been significantly expanded as climate change becomes more serious. Smack down American farms.
Mr. Rollins, an attorney, has a degree in agricultural development and grew up on a farm in Texas, but has little professional experience in agricultural policy. “She’s a relative unknown in the agricultural world,” said Ferd Hefner, former policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
The nomination perplexed many agriculture industry observers who had bet on other potential candidates. “She was probably the last bong in the box,” says Karen Perry Stillerman, deputy director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “He keeps giving out ministerial posts like candy.”
Rollins has long been a staunch supporter of President Trump. “She has done an outstanding job during my first term as Secretary of the Interior Council, Director of the Office of Innovation, and Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives,” President Trump said in a statement.
Mr. Rollins called for the United States to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and praised the administration’s efforts to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s main effort to reduce climate-warming emissions. “The research that says CO2 is a pollutant is completely unwarranted,” she said at a conference held by the conservative Heartland Institute in 2018.
However, it is largely unclear how Rollins’ opposition to climate change measures will be reflected in agricultural policy.
In the eight years since the last Trump administration took office, U.S. farms have been repeatedly damaged by extreme weather events, requiring the USDA to direct tens of billions of dollars in disaster relief and crop insurance payments to the nation’s farmers. be.
“More and more farmers are waking up to the threat of climate change,” Perry Stillerman said. “More farmers are benefiting from huge investments in agriculture and conservation, and are getting incentives and support to change their ways. Rewinding that may be harder than people think. I can’t.”
Also during this period, the most powerful farm lobbying group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, changed its position on climate change and influenced the conversation in the agricultural state. The group has long rejected the scientific consensus that human activities cause greenhouse gas emissions, but says funding for climate change-focused programs is flowing to farmers and reducing carbon storage and farming practices. The denial has since softened, as the carbon market has promised to: Earning Potential for Members.
So far, farms and farmers have received about $7 billion in support for “climate-smart” farming practices under the Biden administration’s flagship climate bill, the Inflation Control Act. Another $13 billion or so is still in the pipeline, but efforts in Congress to pass a farm bill that would direct those funds over the next few years have stalled. The Republican version of the bill calls for removing the requirement that funding support climate-specific practices.
USDA is investing an additional $3 billion in climate-focused agricultural practices under the agency’s Climate Smart Commodity Partnership.
“No matter what happens with the Farm Bill, the USDA is still handing out billions of dollars every year,” said Rebecca Riley, managing director of food and agriculture at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Rollins is going to have a lot of influence on that.”
“Farmers are on the front lines of the climate crisis,” Riley added. “So if you’re the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, it’s hard to deny that climate change is a problem and that it’s impacting the very people your agency is supposed to be helping.”
Mr. Rollins is the founder and current president of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a group of Trump supporters formed in 2020 by wealthy Texans, and a member of Mr. Trump’s two terms. He was deeply involved in Meidema. It was known in the Washington area as the next Trump administration.
AFPI’s agenda calls for blocking foreign purchases of U.S. farmland, and the group praises state bills that would block further purchases. The group particularly criticizes land purchases by China, calling them a “threat to the United States.” But unlike Project 2025, the blueprint for President Trump’s second term coordinated by the Heritage Foundation, it says little else about agriculture. Project 2025 specifically calls for cuts to conservation reserve programs and limits on crop insurance subsidies.
“Agriculture experts aren’t on the[AFPI agenda]so that’s saying something,” Perry Stillerman said. “The only thing on the list is false concerns about China’s ownership of American farmland, and that’s it.”
“Farmers are on the front lines of the climate crisis.”
—Rebecca Riley, Natural Resources Defense Council
Mr. Rollins was also chairman and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of Texas, a powerful pro-fossil fuel group that has funded efforts to block the development of wind and solar power.
The fossil fuel and ethanol industries have long been at loggerheads over the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires a blend of primarily corn-based ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply. Ethanol is one of the main drivers of the U.S. agricultural economy, with 40 percent of corn, America’s most lucrative and widely grown crop, going to gas tanks. The RFS was intended to support cleaner domestic alternatives to fossil fuels, but research has questioned the benefits of greenhouse gases.
“It remains to be seen which side this administration will fall between the mighty oil and gas lobby and the mighty ethanol lobby, but if Trump 1.0 is any indication, they will be in the former camp,” Hefner said in an email. “We’re going to do a lot for ethanol, but we’re going to do a little bit for ethanol.” For the latter, try splitting the baby. ”
Farm advocacy groups said they are reviewing Rollins’ record and preparing for a Senate confirmation hearing.
“What are the questions we should be asking?” Perry Stillerman said. “There’s very little we know.”
Perry Stillerman said her group and others are closely following the agency and asking it to do the same thing that Rollins and other Trump candidates did during President Trump’s first term. He said he plans to monitor whether the order is issued. This includes moving research departments from Washington to Kansas, removing references to climate change from agency reports and websites, and deleting climate-related data.
No matter what happens, conditions on American farms are worsening as a result of climate change.
“Climate risks are rising,” said Ben Lilliston of the Agriculture and Trade Policy Institute, noting that 49 states are currently experiencing drought. “Crop insurance and disaster benefits are increasing. How will she respond to the climate-related challenges facing farmers?”
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Georgina Gustin
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Georgina Gustin covers agriculture for Inside Climate News and has spent much of her journalism career reporting on the intersection of agriculture, food systems, and the environment. Her work has earned her numerous awards, including the John B. Oakes Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism, twice named Glenn Cunningham Agricultural Journalist of the Year, and once with colleagues at ICN. has been selected for the award. She has worked as a reporter for The Day in New London, Conn., the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and CQ Roll Call, and her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Geographic’s The Plate, among others. has been done. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Colorado Boulder.
