Trump nominates Sonny Perdue, who has a troubling lack of conservation credentials, to lead the USDA

President Trump nominated Georgia governor Sonny Perdue to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages programs for farming, nutrition, forests, and a broad range of other areas. Perdue has a scant record on conservation issues, and he wrote fairly recently that “liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.” From cutting programs that conserve soil and protect water quality to scrapping research that could help reduce the climate impact of our agriculture industry to opening treasured national forests to oil, gas, coal, and timber interests, the damage he could do at the helm of the USDA is immense.