In January, after leaving the post open for a year, President Obama nominated Dr. Elisabeth Hagen to be undersecretary for food safety at the USDA. But Hagen's nomination hasn't been confirmed and only recently got through the Agriculture Committee.
While it's possible there are objections to Hagen in the Senate that just haven't been aired publicly, I'd suspect that a lot of the wait has to do with Agriculture Committee chairwoman Sen. Blanche Lincoln's other priorities; namely, championing popular bills that might constitute her only, if slim, chance of surviving a challenge from Rep. John Boozman in November. The news from the committee has been steady and Lincoln-driven: Lincoln is diving into the farm bill, just helped pass the Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization Act, and is working to find more ways to pass out disaster aid to the Arkansas farmers who are her biggest backers.
In the meantime, food safety continues to be a real concern. A new food-safety bill has also stalled in the Senate, and as the blog La Vida Locavore pointed out, ground beef was recalled right after the Senate adjourned for its August recess. So how soon Hagen is confirmed matters, but it's just another example of the Senate dragging its feet.
-- Monica Potts
