Agency relocation advocate in line for key USDA post

By Marc Heller | 01/09/2025 01:41 PM EST

President-elect Donald Trump’s deputy Agriculture secretary nominee, Stephen Vaden, made the legal case for uprooting two USDA research agencies.

Stephen Alexander Vaden

Stephen Vaden is President-elect Donald Trump's pick for the No. 2 position at USDA. Francis Chung/POLITICO; USDA

The president-elect’s pick for the No. 2 post at the Agriculture Department helped engineer the relocation of two research agencies far away from the nation’s capital during Donald Trump’s first term, brushing away complaints that the agency had overstepped its authority.

Stephen Vaden, who was chief counsel for USDA during the first term before Trump nominated him as a federal judge, pushed back against claims that federal agencies need congressional approval to relocate offices.

He’s now Trump’s pick for deputy secretary at USDA, as the incoming team looks to move more of the federal workforce out of Washington. The position is subject to Senate confirmation.

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Ultimately, USDA under Trump won the argument, moving the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Kansas City in September 2019 over the objections of congressional Democrats.

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