Ann M. Veneman Agriculture Department Established: 1862 2003 Budget: $19.5 billion Full-time Employees: 99,200 Veneman's Salary: $171,900 Web Site: www.usda.gov Overall Grade: D Back To Overview And Other Cabinet Grades

National Journal
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Friday, Jan. 24, 2003

With her experience as deputy Agriculture secretary in the first Bush administration and as California's Agriculture secretary, Ann M. Veneman, 53, may be the most qualified person ever to hold the top job at USDA. But farm leaders and members of Congress from the Plains and Southern states have complained that they expected more understanding from an Agriculture secretary in the Bush administration -- particularly because farmers' votes were so important in the 2000 election. However, Veneman (who successfully completed treatment for breast cancer in early January) appears to maintain the confidence of President Bush. In an interview, she said that Agriculture secretaries are always subject to criticism and that she loves her job and being part of the Bush team. She is the first female Agriculture secretary.

Veneman's first year in office was marked by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle in the United Kingdom. Historians may credit her with organizing the successful effort to keep the disease out of the United States, but farm leaders and members of Congress rarely remember that effort now. They are much more likely to recall the small-and some do not hesitate to say negative-role Veneman played in the development of the 2002 farm bill.

Inside Influence Grade: C
When Bush took office, Rep. Larry Combest, R-Texas, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, had already spent a year holding hearings on a bill to replace the 1996 Freedom to Farm program, which had sunk in popularity when commodity prices dropped. The 1996 bill was not scheduled to expire until 2003, and Veneman and J.B. Penn, Agriculture's undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, initially urged Congress to put off writing new legislation. But Combest was determined to get his bill passed, and Democrats shared that aim after they took over the Senate.

In September 2001, the Agriculture Department released Veneman's and Penn's book on the future of American agriculture. The book outlined many negative effects of traditional commodity programs that funnel money to farmers, and it suggested that the department could better spend its money on conservation, food safety, trade promotion and feeding the hungry. The book was a hit with critics of farm subsidies, but farm leaders branded it a collection of platitudes.

At the same time, House members from rural districts told Bush they would not vote for the bill to grant him unfettered trade-negotiating authority until the administration developed a more reassuring position on the farm bill. In November 2001, Bush hired Chuck Conner, a former staff director at the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, as the White House's agriculture adviser. Conner and Hunt Shipman, an Agriculture Department deputy undersecretary who had worked for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., handled the administration's farm-bill negotiations with Congress.

Bush eventually signed a massive bill that shocked conservative Republicans and foreign leaders. Agribusiness executives and foreign agriculture officials who opposed U.S. farm subsidies had been fans of Veneman and Penn, but they still debate whether the two officials could have been politically smarter and used their influence to orient the bill more toward the free market. Of Veneman's and Penn's book, one trade lobbyist said, "While they were fiddling with that, Rome was burning, up on the Hill. The hearings were being held, and they didn't get involved." But in Veneman's and Penn's defense, an embassy agricultural counselor said Combest was so "bullheaded" that former Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., who was of the same mind as Veneman, also failed to have much influence on the bill.

Going over Veneman's head to seek influence inside the White House has become a pattern for members of Congress and agricultural lobbyists. In one incident, Veneman decided that Agriculture should stop intervening with the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to urge the issuance of visas for foreign doctors willing to serve in rural areas -- because USDA officials could not guarantee that the doctors weren't terrorists. Rep. Jerry Moran and Sen. Pat Roberts, both Kansas Republicans, created such a fuss at the White House that the Health and Human Services Department has taken over the intervention role. And when the Office of Management and Budget decided to move an international school lunch program named after former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., and former Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., from Agriculture to the Agency for International Development -- even though Veneman opposed the move -- Roberts organized all 100 senators to sign a letter urging the White House to keep the program at Agriculture. Only then did the White House reverse its plan.

Hill Clout Grade: D
Veneman's appearances on Capitol Hill have sometimes been uncomfortable. Lugar once begged her, to no avail, to take a position on the farm bill. Asked to comment on her performance, a Lugar spokesman said that the senator, who has recently become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was busy with his new duties. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked if he had any thoughts on Veneman, said, "I don't want to state any." Asked to say why, Grassley added, "I don't want to." Cochran, the new chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and also the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Agriculture Subcommittee, was more positive. "She has done a good job. She is very well experienced, particularly in California agriculture," Cochran said. He also complimented her for "putting out front some of the top talent she has recruited for the department," such as Shipman and Bill Hawks, a Mississippian who is undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.

Veneman's severest critic on Capitol Hill is Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who chaired the Senate Budget Committee and worked hard with Grassley to put additional funds in the budget for agriculture. Conrad said he was particularly offended that Veneman called members of the Senate Agriculture Committee to urge them to delay the farm bill, when a budget crisis was approaching. "She's a lovely person, but she's been a disaster as a secretary of Agriculture," Conrad said. "She's clueless."

Political Imperatives Grade: D
The Agriculture Department is huge, with some 100,000 employees operating 300 programs that span eight federal budget functions. Veneman gets some of her highest marks from advocates for programs that do not directly involve farmers-food stamps, the school lunch program, meat and poultry inspection and the U.S. Forest Service. Consumer advocate Carol Tucker Foreman said Veneman has "a Californian's" sense of food safety and food quality and credited her with reversing several pro-industry decisions in those areas. Forestry lobbyists make positive statements about the Bush administration's forestry policy, although they usually give the credit to Mark Rey, Agriculture's undersecretary for natural resources and environment. Environmentalists oppose the administration's public-lands policies, but Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook, who believes farm subsidies should be spent on farmland conservation, said Veneman's book was "a breath of fresh air in the farm-bill debate." Both Foreman and Cook said that Veneman has been the victim of sexism on Capitol Hill. But an agriculture lobbyist who is a woman said that most women in agriculture say her performance and her unpopularity in rural America will make it harder for other women to gain influence.

But farmers and ranchers are the department's most important constituents. Their view of the Agriculture secretary could determine how they vote in 2004. In her trips to farm country, Veneman has almost invariably mentioned the White House theme of the day but then devoted most of her talk to trade policy and biotechnology. But those issues related to international agricultural negotiations, as farm lobbyists and members of Congress have noted, are the formal responsibilities of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Deputy Trade Representative for Agriculture Allen Johnson. "Farmers and ranchers would like to see the secretary be more aggressive on those real pocketbook issues that impact them," said National Farmers Union Washington lobbyist Tom Buis. American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman noted that Veneman has faced "a greater variety of challenges than most of her predecessors. Although the administration had some problems with the 2002 farm bill, she has made sure the department has implemented it in good faith and expeditiously. She has performed as well as anyone could expect."

Running The Department Grade: B
USDA insiders say Veneman's accumulated experience in the department equips her to use the skills of career professionals to the maximum -- although some have said she prefers the company of Penn and her deputy chief of staff, Kevin Herglotz, to that of other political appointees. Lobbyists say the secretary's future may depend on implementation of the farm bill, which requires most farmers to sign up for the administration's programs.

Veneman has said she is proud of the department for implementing such a big bill so quickly, but recent reports suggest that farmers are slow to sign up because the regulations are so complex. "Once the farm bill went to USDA for rule-making, the lawyers descended and decided every farmer in the world was a crook," said one unhappy state agriculture commissioner who is a Republican. But Veneman's critics and friends both say that her future could be brighter than her past. One agribusiness executive acknowledged her poor relations with farmers, but said, "I think she has the potential to pull her grade up. We are now entering trade negotiations, the policy hurdle that is her forte."

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