adcock, r

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</div><div>=</div><div>see lee fang on neo-nics</div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaking of the best people…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A small number of people at a few federal agencies have vast power over the protection of American air and water,” reports The New York Times. “Under the Trump administration, the people appointed to those positions overwhelmingly used to work in the fossil fuel, chemical and agriculture industries. During their time in government they have been responsible for loosening or undoing nearly 100 environmental protections from pollution and pesticides, as well as weakening preservations of natural resources and efforts to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In related news, <b>“a lobbyist turned senior Agriculture Department official repeatedly shared information with her former industry on policy and enforcement, according to ProPublica. Before being tapped by Trump to serve as a senior Agriculture Department official, Rebeckah Adcock “was the chief lobbyist for the herbicide industry’s trade group.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock had helped her former industry colleagues in a variety of ways. At Dow’s request, for example, she had arranged a meeting between a top company official and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue….</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the May 2017 meeting, a Dow lobbyist emailed Adcock: “Do you know who will staff the secretary?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adcock wrote back, playfully, “Yes and u do too.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Roger,” the lobbyist, Hunt Shipman, replied. Then he joked about the potential conflict of a public servant helping former colleagues: “Maybe you can have a chair on both sides of the table…maybe you can staff them both? :)”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p class="print-title"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"> </font></p><p class="print-title"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/a-wide-open-door-for-pesticide-lobbyists-at-agriculture-department">https://www.propublica.org/article/a-wide-open-door-for-pesticide-lobbyists-at-agriculture-department</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At a private meeting in September, congressional aides asked Rebeckah Adcock, a top official at the Department of Agriculture, to reveal the identities of the people serving on the deregulation team she leads at the agency.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Teams like Adcock’s, created under an executive order by President Trump, had been taking heat from Democratic lawmakers over their secrecy. What little was publicly known suggested that some of the groups’ members had deep ties to the industries being regulated.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock, a former pesticide industry executive, brushed off the request, according to House aides familiar with the exchange, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Making the names public, they recalled her saying, would trigger a deluge of lobbyists.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In fact, interviews and visitor logs at the Agriculture Department showed that Adcock had already been meeting with lobbyists, including those from her former employer, the pesticide industry’s main trade group, CropLife America,</b> and its members. CropLife pushes the agenda of pesticide makers in Washington, including easing rules related to safety standards and clean water.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock, who left the trade group in April, maintained contact with her former industry allies despite a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4204225-Rebeckah-Adcock-Ethics-Agreement.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">signed ethics agreement</a> promising to avoid for one year issues involving CropLife as well as matters that she had lobbied about in the two years before joining the government.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one meeting, Adcock discussed issues banned by the ethics agreement with an executive who had been her lobbying partner weeks earlier at CropLife, according to the accounts of participants and the visitor logs, obtained through a public records request by The New York Times and ProPublica.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the USDA who also spoke on behalf of Adcock, said she had not violated her ethics agreement by meeting with her former industry allies. He also denied that Adcock had discussed issues related to her previous lobbying at the meeting, or that she had suggested that her deregulation team would be swamped by lobbyists if names of its members were released.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The career ethics officers at USDA agree that this is not a violation of the ethics agreement that Rebeckah Adcock signed,” said Murtaugh, citing a 2009 memo by the Office of Government Ethics.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Others dispute that interpretation of the memo; the ethics office declined to say whether the memo applied to the meeting, citing its policy not to discuss individual cases.</font></p><aside class="promo small right" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 8.29688px 0px 33.2344px 33.2344px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: right; clear: right; width: 327.328px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.25em 0px 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(216, 214, 211); border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Help Us Investigate</font></h3><div class="story-entry" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1rem 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="description" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="hed" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-indent: inherit; text-transform: inherit; letter-spacing: inherit;"><a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/task-force" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Help Us Identify the Officials Helping Trump Roll Back Regulations</font></a></h3><h4 class="dek" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-indent: inherit; text-transform: inherit; letter-spacing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, President Trump ordered federal agencies to form task forces charged with finding regulations to weaken or eliminate. While the names of appointees to executive-agency task forces are typically made public, some agencies are refusing to reveal who is on their panels</font></h4></div></div></aside><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Adcock is scheduled to appear Tuesday before subcommittees of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is tracking Trump’s deregulation effort.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In announcing the hearing, the committee, led by Republicans, applauded the deregulation teams for making an “unprecedented reduction in the federal regulatory footprint.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican members of the committee declined to comment about Adcock’s activities. Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, said that if Adcock had violated her ethics agreement, it contributed “to a troubling pattern of President Trump’s failure to ‘drain the swamp.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, Trump ordered major federal agencies to set up the deregulation teams, to fulfill a campaign promise to cut red tape for businesses. Corporations and industry groups quickly hired lawyers, lobbyists and economists to help them influence the process with billions of dollars at stake. The regulations under review cover a range of subjects, including the cleanliness of drinking water and the safety of highways.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Trump administration has declined to make public the names of many members of the teams. It has also generally not provided records related to the teams’ calendars and correspondence.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A joint investigation published in July by The Times and ProPublica found that the teams included former employees of industry-financed organizations that oppose environmental regulations; lawyers who have represented companies in cases against federal regulators; and staff members of so-called political dark-money groups. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some are reviewing rules that their previous employers sought to weaken or kill, and at least two may be positioned to profit personally if certain regulations are undone. In all, the two news organizations have identified 112 current and former team members, including 41 with potential conflicts.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the meeting on Capitol Hill in September, Adcock lamented the scrutiny that her team was under, a House aide familiar with the exchange said. Adcock cited, in particular, public records requests for calendars and emails.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Times and ProPublica asked for those records this year and have received only a few. Most other federal agencies have been similarly unresponsive. The visitor logs that have been obtained are often handwritten sign-in sheets. They appear to show only a fraction of meetings, and many are illegible. It is not known from the logs, for example, if Adcock or her team had met with environmental or science groups in addition to the industry representatives.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response to questions from reporters about possible conflicts of interest, agency officials across the government have said the deregulation teams are abiding by strict ethical standards, including rules that bar them from working on issues directly affecting recent employers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Records received through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Adcock entered such an agreement on April 26, pledging that she would “not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter involving specific parties in which I know CropLife America is a party or represents a party” for a year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The two knew each other well. From 2010 to early this year, Adcock and Bray lobbied together for CropLife, which represents Syngenta and Monsanto, among other pesticide makers.But in May, Kellie Bray, a lobbyist for CropLife, arrived for a meeting with Adcock, according to the visitor logs.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Disclosure records show that during those years the two advocated for the industry’s agenda at agencies, including the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency, and in Congress. They pushed CropLife’s interests on bills and regulations relating to the impact of pesticides on water and human health.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adcock’s departure from CropLife left the trade association short a seasoned lobbyist, but gave it a valuable contact in the top ranks of the USDA</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bray said in an interview that in May, Adcock had met with her and the Southern Crop Production Association, a CropLife affiliate. Bray said she had sat in on the meeting but hadn’t talked.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I facilitated the introduction,” she said. “That is all.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the meeting, the Southern Crop Production Association, which represents pesticide manufacturers, formulators and distributors across the South, said on its website that “Rebeckah has an exceptional understanding regarding the many issues facing agriculture due, in large part, to her previous position with CLA,” using the acronym for CropLife America.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the topics discussed, according to the trade group’s website, were the tests that pesticides must undergo to prove they are safe and rules governing their use near water sources. The trade group did not respond to requests for comment. Bray confirmed that the group had discussed regulations about the use of pesticides near water.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Discussing policy related to the impact of pesticides on water is deemed off limits under Adcock’s ethics agreement. Murtaugh, the USDA spokesman, said Adcock disputed that she had discussed any off-limits subject.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If any participant declared concern regarding any issue precluded by Adcock’s agreement, she politely and firmly instructed them it was not a matter she could discuss or assist with,” he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also said Adcock had instructed Bray not to participate in the meeting and did not recall her being in the room.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Murtaugh said a provision in the memorandum from the Office of Government Ethics allowed an appointee like Adcock to attend meetings with a former employer or client so long as five or more other stakeholders participated. In the May meeting, he said, four of the Southern Crop Production Association representatives were affiliated with individual companies: Syngenta, Albaugh, Triangle Chemical and Crop Production Services.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, three of those companies are also members of the CropLife trade group, Adcock’s former employer. And they were attending in their capacity as the executive committee of the Southern Crop Production Association, according to the association’s website, not as individual company executives.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walter M. Shaub Jr., who headed the Office of Government Ethics under President Barack Obama and during the early months of the Trump administration, said the provision cited by the USDA did not apply to the ethics regulation in Adcock’s agreement. Even if it did apply, he said, the meeting lacked a necessary diversity because the participants were all affiliated with one trade group. He also said it was irrelevant that Bray hadn’t spoken.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If she brought them there, signed into the sign-in log, attended the meeting that she may or may not have set up, it definitely counts as a meeting with her,” said Shaub, who has been critical of the Trump administration.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before Adcock worked at CropLife, she served as a lobbyist for the farming industry at the American Farm Bureau Federation. Among its donors is Farm Credit, a lending institution. In July, Adcock met with a delegation from Farm Credit, according to a participant.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the executives who attended — Jeremy Brown, president of Broadview Agriculture, a Texas cotton producer — said in an interview that he knew Adcock from the Farm Bureau. For those who did not know her, Adcock explained her past lobbying on behalf of the farming industry, and she asked for recommendations on regulatory changes, he said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Any time you have people already familiar with the industry, it helps,” Brown said. “They can hopefully get their feet on the ground and get the work in.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He said he had pushed Adcock to get cottonseed reclassified as an oil seed crop so cotton producers could be eligible again for certain government subsidies if revenue dropped. He also discussed what he termed overreach on clean-water rules.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“She was taking notes, being really receptive,” Brown said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another highlight, he said, was the access the group enjoyed. Never before had he attended a meeting in the private gathering room just outside the office of the secretary</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">of agriculture.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I’ve been to the USDA a couple other times,” Brown said, “and this was the first time I’ve been able to go to what they call the Cage.”</font></p><div class="bottom-notes" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="note story-update" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Update: The Agriculture Department provided the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4212284-USDA-Task-Force-Member-List.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">full list</a> of its deregulation team appointees Tuesday following publication of this story, said Jennifer Werner, a spokeswoman for committee Democrats, citing her Republican counterparts.</font></p></div></div><div class="topics-list" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Filed under:</strong></font></font></font></font></p> <ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.625rem 2em 1.625rem 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: none; display: inline;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/topics/trump-administration" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgba(33, 124, 227, 0); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; transition: 0.2s; text-decoration-line: none;">The Trump Administration</a></li></ul></div><p class="print-title"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p></div><div>==</div>