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The farm bill working it’s way through Congress provides us with a rare opportunity for regulatory reform that would address several challenges many landscape professionals face when providing services. It contains many beneficial provisions such as language that would ensure that pesticides are regulated at the Federal and State level ONLY, eliminate the duplicative NPDES […]
A significant tax reform measure that contains a new 6% sales tax on 17 services including landscaping and snow removal was approved late last week when the Kentucky legislature overrode the veto of Governor Bevin. The outcome was the end of a series of questionable governance actions executed by Kentucky legislative leaders in pursuit of […]
Congressional hearings last week offered the first opportunity for members of Congress to seek answers regarding how quickly the administration is likely to act on their authority to authorize additional H-2B visas. Both the Senate and House held Appropriation Subcommittee meetings that featured testimony from the two Secretaries with jurisdictional oversight of the H-2B program. […]
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee introduced the text of H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (the “Farm Bill”). Introduction of the measure was initially expected in February, however House Democrats expressed concern over reforms to the current federal food stamp program and the bill was held back by the […]
Last week, President Trump signed into law the 2018 Omnibus budget bill. Included in that measure was language that COULD provide substantive cap-relief for this year. We say could because the language agreed to by Congress is the same language that they settled upon last year; the cap-relief language grants discretion to the Secretary of […]
The continued legalization of cannabis and hemp in many states is proving to be a conundrum to regulatory agencies nationwide. Since both plants are listed by the federal government as Schedule 1 narcotics, there are no federally registered pesticides that are labeled for use by growers in states where cannabis is legal. That said, any […]
Last week’s Advocate noted the injunction issued by a federal judge in California that temporarily halted the state from designating the popular herbicide glyphosate as cancer-causing. This week, a state judge issued a ruling saying the state must stop using a wide variety of pesticides:
Last Thursday, NALP was present at a public hearing held by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources as the agency began the process of renewing local electric utility Eversource’s five-year Vegetative Management Plan for rights-of-way maintenance. [from here link to blog post with the following text:] Under Massachusetts regulations, the public is invited to submit […]
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security added insult to injury when they unexpectedly announced that they had secretly conducted a lottery to determine which H-2B applicants would receive their workers. This unprecedented move is devastating and adds further confusion to what is already an extremely problematic situation.
Last week, many NALP members received devastating news. They were informed by the Department of Labor that they would not receive the H-2B workers they were counting on. This year, due to an unprecedented volume of applications, over 60% of seasonal businesses were unsuccessful in getting workers through the H-2B program. The pending seasonal labor […]