The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is assigned to review the Esteban nomination and recommend for or against confirmation.
However, with just two weeks remaining before 2021 ends, there is no sign that the Ag Committee has made any progress on the Esteban nomination. The required public hearing has not appeared on any public schedules.
Some past candidates for Under Secretary for Food Safety from the private sector have had vetting challenges because of their research or patent holdings. As a public sector employee with FSIS since 2006, Esteban has a distinguished career record, likely without such entanglements.
The White House did name Sandra Eskin on March 17 as Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety. Deputy jobs do not require Senate confirmation and Eskin went to work shortly after being named to the No. 2 food safety job.
Eskin was long known as the food safety project director for The Pew Charitable Trusts. In that role, Eskin was known for bringing diverse parties together to work on common solutions for food safety challenges. Eskin will head USDA’s Office of Food Safety until the Senate gets around to confirming
The USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety is an office established by Congress in 1994 in a Reorganization Act, but it’s been kept vacant much of the time by both Democratic and Republican administrations. If confirmed,
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