An Open Door for Pesticide Lobbyists at the U.S.D.A.
Representative Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, said
that if Ms. Adcock had violated her ethics agreement, it contributed “to a troubling pattern of President Trump’s failure to ‘drain the swamp.’”
Rebeckah Adcock, a former lobbyist for CropLife America, a trade group representing the pesticide
industry, has agreed not to participate in matters involving her former employer.
In fact, interviews and visitor logs at the Agriculture Department showed
that Ms. Adcock had already been meeting with lobbyists, including those from her former employer, the pesticide industry’s main trade group, CropLife America, and its members.
Ms. Adcock, who left the trade group in April, maintained contact with her former industry allies despite a signed ethics agreement promising to avoid for one year issues involving CropLife as well as matters
that she had lobbied about in the two years before joining the government.