How Trump’s USDA, EPA & HHS Appointees Will Affect Food Systems

Donald Trump is in the process of filling out his second-term cabinet, and he recently announced appointees to lead the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Health And Human Services (HHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Trump’s recent cabinet appointments have the potential to significantly change food systems in America — but how?

Laura Fox, environmental lawyer and research scholar at Yale Law School, tells Sentient that we can expect “deregulation, lax enforcement, reduced oversight and de-emphasization or even denial of certain frameworks, such as climate change,” from the incoming appointees.

“Those are things that I think we can anticipate seeing across the board that will have huge negative impacts on food systems and agriculture,” Fox says. “Environmental justice issues are going to take a back seat, or just be ignored, in these agencies’ decisions.”

Will Trump’s Appointees Do Whatever He Wants?

It’s worth pointing out at the top that, although Trump’s appointees are individuals with their own viewpoints, cabinet secretaries generally do what the president wants them to do. They do have discretion and a degree of autonomy, but in practice, agency heads operate largely as functionaries to carry out the president’s agenda, not individual actors implementing their own favored policies.

There are exceptions to this, of course. In 2017, Trump became outraged with his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, after Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department’s Russia probe without first consulting the president. But this is the exception that proves the rule; for his second term, Trump has appointed a staunch loyalist to head the Justice Department, not a senator to whom he has no personal ties.

Similarly, Trump’s picks to head the USDA, EPA and HHS are likely to implement his larger policy agenda, regardless of their own personal views. There have already been some small signs of this acquiescence: Trump’s HHS appointee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was once an outspoken opponent of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, but stopped mentioning the chemical after allying himself with Trump, whose former EPA head Scott Pruitt thwarted a ban on the pesticide during Trump’s first term.

Nevertheless, it’s still worth looking at who each of these folks are, and what their appointments might mean for animals and food systems in America.

United States Department of Agriculture: Brooke Rollins

Nominated to lead the USDA is Brooke Rollins, a conservative attorney who has served in a number of policy-oriented positions over the last few decades. In Texas, she served as former Gov. Rick Perry’s policy director, and later led the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Rollins held several White House positions during Trump’s first term, including Director of the Domestic Policy Council, Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives and Director of the Office of American Innovation. She currently leads the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a Trump-aligned think tank.

Rollins has some personal history in agriculture, as she grew up on a farm and got her undergraduate degree in agricultural leadership and development. She doesn’t appear to have any professional experience in the sector, though, and aside from her vocal opposition to Chinese ownership of American farmland, Rollins’ views on agricultural issues are largely unknown.

Given her longtime involvement in conservative politics, however, she likely shares the same general positions on agricultural and food issues as most Republicans — that is, skepticism of climate-focused initiatives, support for crop subsidies, a desire to cut SNAP funding and a general opposition to regulations.

Environmental Protection Agency: Rep. Lee Zeldin

To lead the EPA, Trump has nominated Rep. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican. Zeldin is most known for his 2022 run for New York governor; although he lost, it was the closest New York gubernatorial race in nearly 30 years, and his respectable showing made Zeldin something of a rising star in the Republican Party.

Like Rollins, Zeldin has little apparent background in the policy area over which Trump is giving him control. His background is in the military, and during his eight years in Congress, Zeldin didn’t sit on any subcommittees relating to the environment.

Zeldin’s voting record on environmental legislation earned him a 14 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, suggesting a hostile attitude toward regulatory efforts to protect the environment. In a 2014 interview, he questioned the urgency of climate change. “I’m not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are,” he told Newsday. More recently, he spoke of his desire to “roll back regulations that are forcing businesses [to] struggle” after Trump announced his nomination.

Department of Health and Human Services: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Trump has tapped attorney and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the HHS. Kennedy was once a respected environmental lawyer, but has since fallen out of favor with many environmentalists due to his increasingly controversial views, which include opposing offshore wind energy and incorrectly claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine is “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”

Kennedy has many opinions about many topics, but plenty of them will fall outside his jurisdiction as HHS secretary. For instance, he’s spoken out against various pesticides and advocates frequently for organic foods — but pesticides are regulated by the EPA, and organic food by the USDA, so he won’t have much power over these areas if he’s confirmed as HHS secretary.

How Trump’s Appointees Could Affect Food Systems

Let’s take a look at a few ways in which these three appointees might have an impact on food and animals in the United States.

Failing to Regulate Pollution from Factory Farms

Although food systems generally don’t fall under the EPA’s jurisdiction, Zeldin’s pro-business stance could nevertheless have an impact on what we eat and drink. As part of its enforcement of the Clean Water Act, the EPA regulates waste and water discharges from factory farms, and the agency is currently in the midst of re-evaluating whether these regulations are sufficient.

This study hasn’t been completed yet, but once it is, the EPA will decide whether to impose more regulations on these discharges. Zeldin’s affinity for deregulation suggests that he won’t be inclined to implement additional restrictions on factory farm pollution, even if the agency’s study suggests that they’re necessary. Such a decision would, in turn, stall efforts to make American drinking water safer — which was the point of the study in the first place.

Similarly, Fox tells Sentient that Zeldin is unlikely to crack down on other kinds of pollution from factory farms, specifically methane.

“The EPA has not done much on regulating methane emissions from large animal feeding operations, and we don’t see that happening under a Zeldin administration at all,” Fox says. “I don’t think it’s unique to Zeldin. I imagine any of the Republican appointees are likely to de-emphasize or deny the impacts of climate change.”

Changing School Lunches & Dietary Guidelines for Americans

One tool Kennedy and Rollins would have for influencing American food systems is the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). Written jointly by the USDA and the HHS and updated every five years, this is a lengthy compilation of dietary recommendations that guides federal food purchases and other programs involving food.

One such program is the National School Lunches Program (NSLP). The USDA administers the NSLP, and by law, the lunches themselves must adhere to the DGA’s general guidance (although the USDA has some wiggle room when it comes to interpreting these recommendations, as we’ll see).

In total, the DGA influences over $80 billion in federal spending every year, and as heads of the USDA and HHS, Rollins and Kennedy would both have a major say over what’s included in the next version of the document. This, in turn, would give them indirect influence over how a number of federal food programs operate.

For instance, Kennedy is a longtime opponent of ultra-processed foods, and has said that he wants them out of school lunches “immediately.” As head of HHS, Kennedy wouldn’t have any direct say over the school lunches program — but he would have direct say over what’s in the next edition of the DGA.

“USDA is required by statute to update child nutrition meal patterns to conform with the latest DGA, which they do every five years,“ Chloe Waterman, senior program manager at the nonprofit Friends of the Earth, tells Sentient. “Kennedy could theoretically push for limits on ultra-processed foods in the 2025-2030 DGA, which could — again, in theory, and in another five years from now — translate to USDA issuing child nutrition meal patterns that limit ultra-processed foods.”

Project 2025, the lengthy book of policy recommendations prepared by Trump allies prior to his election, recommended abolishing the DGA entirely, ostensibly because “issues such as climate change and sustainability [have] infiltrated” the guidelines, which are officially meant to cover personal health, not planetary health.

This is a misrepresentation, however, as the guidelines do not take climate or sustainability into account. This possibility was floated in 2015 during preliminary meetings about the DGA, but Congress immediately shot down the idea, and passed legislation that actively forbids the document from taking anything into consideration other than personal health and nutrition.

In any event, the USDA and HHS are required by law to publish a DGA every five years, so eliminating the guidelines entirely would require Congressional action. But simply changing what the guidelines say would not.

Cutting SNAP Funding

The USDA is also in charge of SNAP, the federal food stamps program. While SNAP is funded by Congress through the Farm Bill, the actual benefit amounts themselves are determined by something called the Thrifty Food Plan. This is essentially the USDA’s guide for eating healthfully on a limited budget, and it’s written in accordance with the DGA’s recommendations.

This means that any changes Rollins or Kennedy make to the DGA would also influence how much money food stamps recipients receive. It’s difficult to game things out beyond that, as it would depend on what specific changes they make to the DGA — and whether these changes promote foods that are more or less expensive than current SNAP benefits allow for.

Congressional Republicans have proposed changes to the SNAP program that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would effectively cut SNAP payments by $30 billion over the next decade. While this effort is taking place in Congress, where Rollins has no authority, it’s still a good indicator of where Republican Party officials stand on the issue of food stamps: they want to cut them.

Lifting Restrictions on Raw Milk

As HHS chief, Kennedy would be in charge of several other agencies as well, including the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA, which Kennedy has accused of waging a “war on public health,” regulates interstate distribution and sale of raw milk — and Kennedy is a fan of raw milk.

He shouldn’t be, as raw milk is not safe for human consumption and can even facilitate the spread of zoonotic diseases like avian flu. Nevertheless, Kennedy could lift the FDA’s (modest) restrictions on unpasteurized milk sales, making it easier for raw milk fans to find, purchase and consume the dangerous beverage, which recently gave 171 people salmonella.

Deregulating Pesticides

How exactly the second Trump administration will handle pesticides is a bit of a mystery. On the one hand, Trump has elevated and heaped praise upon Kennedy, who is broadly in favor of additional pesticide regulations; on the other hand, Trump’s first administration deregulated pesticides.

Regardless, the EPA is in charge of pesticide regulation in the U.S., so this responsibility would fall to Zeldin, not Kennedy. While Zeldin’s views on pesticides are anybody’s guess, he shares the Republican Party’s general loathing of regulations, and both progressives and conservatives expect him to pursue an agenda of deregulation as EPA chief, which could include easing regulations on pesticides.

Lax Enforcement of Animal Welfare Standards

Fox tells Sentient that she expects Rollins — ”and probably anybody that’s going to be coming into USDA in this administration” — to pursue deregulatory policies that will hurt animals and humans alike.

“We’re going to see deregulation, which affects animal welfare standards and treatment of animals at production facilities,” Fox says. “Likely, policies that will increase slaughterhouse line speeds, which then risk worker safety, food safety and animal welfare.”

She also suspects that under Rollins, inspection duties at slaughterhouses will be increasingly privatized.

“Right now, we have federal employees looking at violations of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and under the first Trump administration, they had proposed allowing facility employees to do that function [instead],” Fox explains. “So I imagine that’s going to continue, which could lead to fewer enforcement actions against humane handling violations.”

Supporting Agricultural Subsidies

Every year, the U.S. government hands out over $30 billion in subsidies to agricultural producers, and the USDA is in charge of distributing this money. This is another area in which Rollins, as USDA chief, could conceivably have some influence.

While Republicans and Democrats sometimes bicker about the details from time to time, farm subsidies themselves are generally supported by both major parties. There’s no significant movement within the GOP to eliminate or significantly reduce farm subsidies, which isn’t the case with many other federal spending programs.

In fact, during the last Republican administration, the USDA actually increased farm subsidy payments by a significant margin. It did this in response to Trump’s trade war with China, which caused the value of U.S. farm exports — and thus profits for U.S. agricultural producers — to plummet.

With Trump pledging even more tariffs on day one of his second term, it seems highly possible that the USDA, under Rollins’ guidance, could again increase farm subsidies to stave off financial disaster in the U.S. farming sector.

The Bottom Line

It’s worth keeping in mind that none of these appointments are a sure thing just yet, as all three nominees will need to be confirmed by the Senate. Incoming presidents generally don’t have too hard of a time getting their cabinets confirmed, but it’s entirely possible that some combination of Rollins, Kennedy and Zeldin won’t win confirmation.

If they do, though, our food systems could undergo some serious changes. Exactly what those changes will look like remains to be seen, but it’s fair to say that in general, they’ll likely prioritize business interests and profits over environmental welfare, food safety and personal health.