Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue heads to hurricane-ravaged parts of Florida and Texas this week, while back in Washington   the Senate Agriculture Committee takes the first step to finally provide Perdue with some key help at USDA.
 
The Senate committee on Tuesday will hold a confirmation hearing for Steve Censky to be deputy agriculture secretary, the position traditionally in charge of day-to-day operations at USDA, and Ted McKinney to be USDA’s first undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural services.
 
Censky is the longtime CEO of the American Soybean Association. McKinney is state agriculture director for Indiana. The committee has not scheduled a vote on the nominations. Neither is controversial.
 
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