Randy Yohe Published

Trump Cabinet Nominees Have Connections To W.Va. Interests, Policies

Government worker visiting with family on their front porch
West Virginia greatly depends on FEMA assistance after natural disasters.
Courtesy: FEMA.org
Listen

While President Donald Trump’s highest profile cabinet nominees undergo very public confirmation hearings, some of the nominees that will affect West Virginia’s interests are flying a bit under the radar.

Marshall University associate professor of political science Marybeth Beller spoke with Randy Yohe on her analysis of four Trump cabinet hopefuls and their potential relationship to the Mountain State.

This story was lightly edited for clarity

Yohe: Dr. Beller, you took a look at some of the Trump nominees for cabinet positions that would affect West Virginia issues and policy. Talk about your observations? 

Beller: West Virginia depends on a lot of federal money for different things. I was particularly interested in looking at Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has been appointed to be the administrator over Medicare and Medicaid. A total of almost 47% of West Virginians are either on Medicaid or Medicare, and so both of these programs are vital to the health care of West Virginians. 

I also looked at DHS, because that’s the department that specifically governs TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This is the welfare program that is a big match, a federal match for West Virginia’s West Virginia Works program, which is our version of welfare. Currently, right now, 5,000 West Virginians are on TANF, and so this program is very, very important to their livelihood. 

I also looked at food stamps, which are governed by the Department of Agriculture. We have a lot of West Virginians who are currently on food stamps. Food stamps and our forest service are both governed under the Department of Agriculture. Right now, 78% of West Virginia’s land is forested. Seven percent of those are national forests, 9% are state forests. But the policies that are coming out of the Secretary of Agriculture’s office are really going to impact West Virginia. So those were the big things that I looked at first. 

Also I looked at FEMA. FEMA is governed by Homeland Security, and West Virginia has been very dependent on FEMA in the past few years for issues like flooding, tornadoes and powerful storms that knock down trees and cause blockages. All these departments are pretty important for us. 

Yohe: So let’s go down the line first. Let’s start with the Secretary of Agriculture nominee, Brook Rollins. 

Beller: Brook Rollins is an interesting person. She is an attorney by trade. She has been counsel and adviser to (former) Texas Governor Rick Perry, so she has some experience in government. Of particular concern might be her most recent position as president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She was able to grow this foundation from a very small organization to many, many staffers, and it’s been very successful. But things that the foundation has published might suggest things West Virginians might be concerned about, particularly their latest report on alternative energy concludes that it’s a bad investment for the federal government. 

West Virginia, as you know, has been putting a lot of resources into alternative energy, with wind energy, solar and other alternatives. Rollins’ organization is not a proponent of funding renewables. They also have put out a statement, given the wildfires in California, that climate change has no bearing on those wildfires. West Virginia is certainly susceptible to a lot of wildfires, and so that kind of policy conclusion might be damaging for us in the future.

Yohe: For FEMA, which West Virginia relies on often, it’s under the Office of Homeland Security, and the nominee is Kristi Noem.

Beller: Kristi Noem does have good political experience. Noem also very loudly wants to prioritize border security and to shift more resources out of her division into border security. West Virginia, obviously, is not a border state. What we badly need are to have the security of FEMA funds for the next emergency that comes down the pike

Yohe: When it comes to administering Medicare and Medicaid, the nominee is well known, Dr Mehmet Oz.

Beller: He appears to have a few professional qualifications. He has been a surgeon. He was a professor at Columbia University of cardiothoracic surgery. However, the university cut ties with him several years ago because he had been on TV promoting remedies that don’t have scientific support. I’m talking about his referral to medications, specifically to lose weight, along with lots of different gimmicks that really don’t have scientific backing. With all of his claims, it’s a little disheartening, because Medicare and Medicaid are so precious to West Virginia, and Dr. Oz does not have the administrative experience to govern such a large entity.

Yohe: And finally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the controversial nominee, I think it’s safe to say, for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Beller: He’s very controversial. He says things that don’t have scientific support, and the Department of Human Services is really important to West Virginia because we have such a high rate of poverty here. Over 5,000 West Virginians right now are on TANF, the national welfare program. Our West Virginia version of that is West Virginia Works. The federal government provides funds for 55% of that program, and to have somebody who makes outlandish claims that are not supported by facts is a bit disheartening for me.

Yohe: Is there anything else you want to tell me about these nominees and their relationship to West Virginia that I didn’t ask?

Beller: I think it’s going to be really, really important for our representatives in the Senate and the House to work with the Trump administration to let him know what our state’s needs and priorities are, because an administrator sets the tone and can’t initiate policies. It’s the people who work under that administrator that actually make things happen, and so I think we’re going to need to rely heavily upon our federal representatives from West Virginia to get our needs and wants known.