As a member of Congress, Tim Walz voted to stop EPA’s “waters of the U.S.” rule to protect waterways from farm runoff. He voted to keep climate change out of the Interior Department’s decisions on conservation and recreation on public lands, and he supported loosening certain pesticide restrictions.
Now, he’s running on a ticket that would do the opposite, if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president with Walz as vice president.
Walz’s evolution from a middle-of-the-road congressman to a hero for progressives, shown in part through his record on agriculture, complicates the narrative that’s likely to unfold as the campaign progresses.
The opposing Trump camp is branding him as a liberal partner to a liberal Harris.
In picking the Democratic governor of Minnesota as her running mate, though, Harris draws on a seasoned politician whose stances on farm policy helped him repeatedly win reelection in a Republican-leaning district. Walz, who served six terms in the House, became a senior member of the Agriculture Committee and played a role in crafting three farm bills.
“He has a deep history on the Agriculture Committee,” said Michael Lavender, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Having someone with an extensive agriculture policy record on a presidential ticket is “pretty astonishing,” he said.
Although agriculture isn’t a front-burner issue in presidential races, the Harris campaign is counting on Walz’s background to give the ticket more support in the Midwest and states such as Michigan — just as the Trump campaign touts running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio’s appeal in Midwest battleground states.
Once in office, vice presidents are known more for diplomatic work or other domestic work than for rural outreach. Former Vice President Mike Pence, from Indiana, ended up playing only a limited role on Agriculture Department programs during the Trump administration, said one agricultural lobbyist who works with officials and Congress on a regular basis.
Walz’s environmental record in Congress
Walz’s agriculture resume begins with his upbringing in rural Nebraska and includes advocating for upstart farmers, on-farm energy production and biofuels. But during his 12 years in Congress, he wasn’t exactly a champion for the environment.
The League of Conservation Voters knocked Walz for twice voting for GOP-led legislation to ease restrictions on pesticides near waterways. The “Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act” passed the Republican-led House but did not advance in the Senate. It would have prohibited EPA and states from requiring water pollution permits for pesticide discharges into navigable waters, if the chemicals were approved by the agency.
He voted also to challenge EPA’s WOTUS rule through the Congressional Review Act, reflecting concerns in farm country that the Clean Water Act could be applied to ditches or streams on farms that don’t run all year. Walz once asked at a farm issues forum whether a farmer who dug a hole for a fence post near a stream would fall under the regulation.
In 2014, he was one of 15 Democrats to vote against a measure allowing the Interior secretary to consider the effects of climate change in making decisions about conservation and recreation on public lands.
The LCV gave Walz a lifetime score of 83 out of 100 on its 2017 report card; by 2018, his score had dropped but mainly because he missed many votes when he was running for governor.
“He was there on the big issues,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs at the LCV Action Fund, which endorses political candidates. Those would include the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2009, the major climate legislation during the Obama administration, Sittenfield said.
“On balance, he was very strong on climate,” Sittenfeld said.
Farm country credentials
On the Agriculture Committee, Walz defended his own farm country credentials during the markup on the 2018 farm bill. The Republican majority was pushing through a bill — sidelining Democrats — that would have imposed new work requirements on low-income nutrition programs.
“I came to Congress to write farm bills, I came to get policy right,” Walz said, adding that his congressional district was second in the nation in hog production and ninth in overall agricultural production.
He lamented the committee’s turn away from bipartisan work that year and suggested the public would judge lawmakers for it.
“It’s never been done like this before. We were locked out of the process,” Walz told his colleagues. “If we wonder why we rank between North Korea and head lice in Congress, this is why.”
Supporters of rural energy remember Walz for his support of the Rural Energy for America Program, which helps farmers install efficient energy systems including solar arrays and, less frequently, manure digesters that can generate power.
In 2017, Walz co-wrote a letter to Agriculture Committee leaders urging continued support for rural energy programs, citing the work of the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute in Waseca, Minnesota.
Walz took positions that pleased progressive farm groups, too, including proposing legislation in 2018 — his last year in Congress — to give soil health, water conservation and clean water more emphasis in the Agriculture Department’s Conservation Stewardship Program. That program pays farmers for conservation practices across their operations.
A few years earlier, Walz helped create the beginning farmer and rancher development program in the 2014 farm bill.
“He was one we considered a champion,” Lavender said.
Walz’s record as governor
As a governor, Walz took a more liberal turn on the issues that he could steer through a Democratic-majority Minnesota Legislature.
On agriculture, he created a biofuels council to promote the alternative fuels’ role in reducing greenhouse gases. In 2023, he signed a law that set up $1.25 million in grants for farmers to buy equipment geared to healthy soil practices.
The law also expanded the state’s office for emerging farmers; Minnesota has bucked national trends by increasing the number of small farms between 2017 and 2022.
“He understands we need all kinds of agriculture,” said Gary Wertish, president of Minnesota Farmers Union. “He works hard to listen to everybody. This is excellent for agriculture, to have him on the ticket.”
To some environmental groups, Walz as governor has supported the wrong kind of agriculture. A coalition of groups called People Not Polluters in June criticized the state for favoring industry over the environment before and during Walz’s term, including allowing expansion of large livestock operations and failing to keep nitrate pollution from farms from spoiling private wells.
“Historically, Minnesota has been known as a national leader in environmental protection,” said the organizations, including Minnesota chapters of the Sierra Club and the Izaak Walton League. “However, for years now, our state agencies routinely side with polluters, not people.”
In an article on the dispute in the online news outlet MinnPost, the Walz administration stood behind its agencies.
The LCV’s Sittenfeld, in a statement, called the Harris-Walz ticket “historic.”
Sittenfeld added, “We applaud Vice President Harris for choosing a running mate who shares her commitment to acting on climate and know that together, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will build on the Biden-Harris administration’s historic progress on climate, clean energy, environmental justice, conservation, democracy, and so much more.”
