Des Moines, Iowa, October 8, 2003 - Sixty-two rural and urban grassroots organizations from across America sent a letter today asking the U.S. Senate to reject the nomination of Thomas Dorr as Undersecretary of Rural Development for the USDA. Dorr was given a vote of no confidence by the 2002 Senate Agriculture Committee and was bound for almost certain rejection on the Senate floor when George W. Bush appointed him to office during last summer's recess. Dorr's appointment to the U.S.D.A. will expire when Congress adjourns later this fall if his nomination isn't approved by the 2003 Senate.

Senator Tom Harkin (IA), ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, has pledged to kill Dorr's current nomination with a filibuster if necessary. "I will lay out how Mr. Dorr has lied, he has cheated and how the department (USDA) won't respond to me," Harkin told reporters. (Des Moines Register, June 19, 2003.)

The letter sent to the Senate lists numerous reasons to reject Thomas Dorr's nomination. First, Dorr deliberately misrepresented his family farm operations' structure in order to cheat the U.S. government and circumvent payment limitations. Second, Dorr's vision for increased concentration in U.S. agriculture and the consolidation of many family farms into singular "megafarms" is counter to effective rural development. Dorr is also on record as strongly opposing sustainable agriculture practices. Third, Dorr has made comments tying rural economic development with lack of ethnic and religious diversity. Fourth, he has revealed his disdain for rural residents who utilize the type of government programs he is now charged with administering.

The USDA continues to withhold records from the Senate and the public that could shed light on Dorr's payment limitation scheme.

"The Senate finally has the opportunity to reject Tom Dorr and his destructive vision for agriculture's future once and for all," said George Naylor, Iowa farmer and member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and President of the National Family Farm Coalition, organizations that are spearheading the campaign to oppose Dorr's nomination. "He attempted to misuse government programs for personal gain and supports polluting corporate livestock factories. He has stated that he views the Department of Rural Development as the 'venture capitalists' of rural America, instead of lender of last resort, its primary historical mission."

The letter to the Senate concludes:

"It is not in our nation's best interest to have an Undersecretary for Rural Development who has admitted misuse of U.S. government programs, antagonized those he would be charged to serve, and who envisions a structure of agriculture that would further depopulate our rural communities."