To: The United States Senate

Tell the Senate: Stop Racist Climate Denier Sam Clovis

Oppose Sam Clovis, Trump’s climate-denier pick for U.S. Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics, the top scientist at the USDA.

Why is this important?

The Department of Agriculture is on the front lines of the climate crisis. Trump has appointed Sam Clovis as its chief scientist. But Clovis is a racist climate denier, not a scientist.

Clovis has an ugly history of racist and anti-science rants.In a 2011 blog post, Clovis called progressives "race traitors." Just months before, he criticized Hurricane Katrina survivors, attributing their hardships to a “cultural” failure. Like Trump he believes climate change is "junk science."

We can't have a bush-league Rush Limbaugh leading the USDA's science programs.

The Department of Agriculture is on the front lines of the climate crisis, responsible for helping farmers deal with droughts and floods — and for cutting the huge amount of greenhouse pollution produced by industrial agriculture. Not only that, the USDA includes the U.S. Forest Service, which is responsible for dealing with a maelstrom of climate-change disasters devastating our national forests, from pinebark beetles to year-round wildfires. Furthermore, the agency feeds the nation and fights poverty and structural racism - its food-assistance programs provide food to over 40 million low-income and homeless people, including over 5.7 million black households with over 2 million black children.

There are already signs that Sam Clovis is having a dangerous impact at USDA, where he currently serves as a senior advisor. In January, he signed off on a memo to the department’s scientists banning them from publishing fact sheets, documents, and press releases with their findings.

United States Code requires that the USDA's chief scientist be chosen from "distinguished scientists with specialized training or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics." Clovis has no such experience.

We have the power to stop Clovis' confirmation dead in its tracks. This is our chance to prevent this ugly racist from being elevated to a position with significant power over the future of our nation.