U.S. Department of Agriculture

Struggling dairy farmers in Colorado and the nation received a $290 million boost from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Thursday.

Some conservationists praised the Obama administration’s nomination Thursday of Harris Sherman to the post of Undersecretary of Natural Resources and Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Others aren’t quite so sure the two-time head of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources is the right choice.

Term-limited state Sen. Jim Isgar won appointment as the U.S. Department of Agriculture state director of rural development, Mile High Politics first reported Tuesday morning. The Hesperus Democrat, whose Senate District 6 covers eight counties in the southwest corner of Colorado, plans to step down in about three weeks, he told Jeremy Pelzer, creating the need for a vacancy committee to fill the final year of his term.

Four Colorado projects that convert wood waste, or biomass, into energy received a total of $1 million in federal stimulus funds Thursday, but a state with more than two million acres of dead and dying lodgepole pine forests could use a lot more.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Thursday issued a memorandum essentially blocking most development and road building on more than 53 million acres of national forest (4.4 million in Colorado) designated as roadless areas.

A growing chorus of Colorado and national sportsmen and conservation groups are calling on U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to suspend work on the controversial Colorado roadless rule or pull the plug on it altogether in favor of a strong national rule.

A federal watchdog lambasted a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Rural Utility Service effort to expand broadband Internet service to rural communities for “irregularities” in the $5.7 billion loan program.

Way back in late 2006 former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack ran for the democratic nomination for president — for a whole three months until he gave it up in Feb. 2007. While on the routine nationwide criss-cross tour to make the case for his candidacy Vilsack, long known as a pragmatic centrist, launched into a rather fiery Q&A following a speech at the University of Colorado Law School.

Those remarks could serve as an interesting predictor of Vilsack’s approach to food, farming and energy as Pres.-elect Barack Obama’s newly nominated U.S. Agriculture Secretary.

President-elect Barack Obama will name his secretary of interior at a press conference in Chicago at 10:45 a.m. CST Wednesday, his transition team announced. It has been widely reported that Democratic U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado will be the nominee. At the same press conference, Obama is expected to name former Democratic Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as secretary of agriculture, NBC first reported Tuesday afternoon.

Rep. John Salazar, a Mannassa potato farmer who last month won election to a third term representing Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, confirmed Wednesday morning he “may” be under consideration to head the Department of Agriculture in an Obama administration, The Denver Post reports. His name is among those pushed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) in a letter sent Tuesday to President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team in a bid to secure spots in an administration Hispanic leaders feel owes its existence, at least in part, to overwhelming support from Hispanic voters.