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Dorr steps down as USDA Rural Development director

By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — USDA Secretary Ed Schafer has announced the resignation of Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development Thomas Dorr, effective Dec. 1.

“Tom Dorr has been a transformational leader for USDA Rural Development,” Schafer said on Nov. 5. “As the transition to a new Administration continues in the months ahead, senior leaders will be moving on, but Undersecretary Dorr’s contributions to USDA and rural America will be felt for many years to come.”

A Marcus, Iowa, native, Dorr joined USDA in 2001 under President Bush, serving as USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development and Senior Advisor to the Secretary. In December 2005, Dorr was appointed by then-USDA Secretary Mike Johanns to chair the USDA Energy Council and served as co-chair of the Federal Biomass Research and Development Board.

While at the USDA, Dorr worked to ease the loss of minority-owned farm land, and led the effort to revitalize USDA Rural Development’s Multi-Family Housing Program, which he successfully worked to resolve longstanding litigation which threatened to gut the program with potentially billions of dollars in losses.

Dorr led USDA’s path-breaking rural broadband program, launched 2002, which helped ensure universal access to affordable broadband even in low-density rural areas. He also instigated an ongoing initiative to enhance the USDA Rural Development’s marketing and outreach efforts and streamline office structure and program delivery systems.

From 1991-1997, Dorr served as a member of the board of directors of the 7th District Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Iowa Board of Regents, and as a member and officer of the Iowa and National Corn Growers Assoc.

A graduate of Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, with a B.S. degree in business administration, Dorr was also president of a family business consisting of a corn and soybean farm, a state-licensed commercial grain elevator and warehouse, and two limited liability family owned companies which finish swine.

As undersecretary, Dorr was responsible for the Rural Business-Cooperative Service, Rural Housing Service and Rural Utilities Service, which together have $14 billion in annual funding authority for loans, grants and technical assistance to develop rural housing, community facilities, utilities and businesses and cooperatives.
Rural Development has an $80 billion-portfolio of existing loans, with over 7,000 employees located across the United States and in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Western Pacific Trust territories.

Prior to joining USDA, Dorr managed a family farming and agribusiness holding company in northwest Iowa, served on the Board of Directors of the 7th District Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and was a member of the Iowa Board of Regents overseeing the state university system.

“Rural America is changing, and Tom Dorr recognized eight years ago that USDA Rural Development must change with it to meet new challenges and opportunities,” Schafer said of Dorr, who has two children, Allison and Andrew, with his wife, Ann.

“Thanks to his vision and leadership, USDA Rural Development is a stronger, streamlined, modernized, and effective agency positioned to continue its long tradition of service to rural America,” he said.
But in August 2002, Dorr’s recess appointment as USDA undersecretary by President Bush was marred in controversy when U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee, charged that Dorr lacked “the judgment, outlook and temperament for this very important position for rural America,” questioning Dorr’s past financial dealings.

“The record also shows that as the CEO of a corporation, Mr. Dorr, in filing false information with [the] USDA, does not meet the standard set by President Bush when he signed a new law on corporate responsibility just last week,” Harkin charged.

Harkin told the Bush administration that he threatened to reopen an investigation into the finances of Dorr’s farm operations, as well as issue subpoenas to the USDA for records that the department had allegedly refused to give to the Senate Agriculture Committee regarding Dorr’s repayment to the government of $17,000 for purported violations of government payment rules in 1994 and 1995. As a result, Dorr’s family operation was ordered to repay $34,000 for the two separate violations. Harkin also claimed two Dorr family trusts received $65,000 in farm program payments from 1988 through 1993. According to the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), more than 165 grassroots organizations publicly opposed Dorr’s nomination.

“The Senate finally has the opportunity to reject Tom Dorr and his destructive vision for agriculture’s future once and for all,” said Churdan, Iowa farmer George Naylor, a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

“He attempted to misuse government programs for personal gain and supports polluting corporate livestock factories,” he said. “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 Senate Ag committee eventually gave Dorr a no confidence vote when it did not recommend his nomination.

11/12/2008