Agriculture ranking member wants to hear from USDA civil servants

House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, has scheduled a technical session April 25 with Agriculture Department budget chief Steve Dewhurst--so that Dewhurst can present the Bush administration's USDA budget--plus a hearing April 26 with Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman. But ranking member Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, wants hearings with more USDA divisions, even though the Bush administration has not made many appointments at the department. At a subcommittee oversight hearing Wednesday on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, over which the subcommittee also has jurisdiction, Kaptur noted that this hearing marked the first time in two years that CFTC officials had appeared before the subpanel. Kaptur said, "I hope we will have all relevant witnesses at a time that is extremely troubling for American agriculture." A Republican subcommittee aide said that only a hearing with Veneman has been scheduled because Bush has not named other appointees. But a Kaptur aide said Kaptur believes the subcommittee should hear from civil servants of the various divisions of USDA if political appointees are not in place before the subcommittee has to start making decisions on discretionary spending.