INDUSTRY NEWS Day on the Hill: D.C. Speakers Address Key Industry Issues

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After green industry professionals cleaned up from their morning of volunteer work at Arlington National and Historic Congressional cemeteries July 24, they spent the afternoon soaking in updates about pressing industry issues by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez and Howard Fineman, Newsweek’s chief political correspondent, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief, among others.

Secretary Gutierrez, the former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Kellogg Co. and a core member of President George W. Bush’s economic team, discussed the president’s plan for comprehensive immigration reform. His presentation inspired a passionate and emotional discussion around a sensitive, heated issue that, according to industry members, is being tied too closely to H-2B, a temporary worker program landscape contractors use to obtain supplemental labor.
 
Then, Fineman was able to shed some light on what the lawn and landscape industry can expect for the 2008 election and how both parties will use global issues, such as immigration and war, “to score points” and votes.
 
Specifically concerning comprehensive immigration reform, Fineman predicted a resolution “will only come after the election with an expanded guest worker program with higher caps and strict enforcement of illegal immigrants.”
 
In addition to the 2008 election, H-2B and comprehensive immigration reform, other issues that were addressed at the PLANET Day on the Hill included health care and pesticide and water use.
 
For instance, the Association Health Care bill has been pending for 12 years now, continually passing in the House, but getting stuck in the Senate. This year, it’s only four votes short of breaking the Senate, according to Andrew Patzman from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Washington, D.C. The bill (S. 1955) allows small businesses and professional associations to get together to purchase insurance, helping to represent a small business as a large one by giving it strength in numbers through the association.
 
On the pesticide front, “The Pest Management and Fire Suppression Flexibility Act” – S. 1269 and H.R. 1749, aiming to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify certain activities the conduct of which does not require a permit – “is very important to our industry,” pointed out Gene Harrington, director of government affairs for the National Pest Management Association. Basically, this exempts federally regulated pesticides from the Clean Water Act, which forces lawn care operators to get permits to apply a pesticide to or near water, regardless of EPA approval of the products and ignoring the fact that applicators are applying products according to label instructions.

“The cost to get these permits and then conduct expensive water monitoring is wasteful because these products are already approved by the EPA,” Harrington explained. “Also, people can file suits against lawn care operators if they believe they are violating the Clean Water Act, so the passing of this law will mean the industry isn’t subject to nuisance litigation.”
 
Then, D.C. Legislative and Regulatory Services’ Laurie Flanagan, a PLANET lobbyist, addressed water concerns, mainly urging attendees to support the development of a water caucus. “There is no exchange on Capitol Hill about water right now,” Flanagan said. “We want to encourage them to form a water caucus to have one form of dialogue and group of legislators dedicated to this issue who can vote jointly and discuss water-related topics in a bipartisan way.”