Tom Delaney Provides Legislative Issues Update

In his second monthly column, Tom Delaney, PLANET director of government affairs, discusses legislative updates from throughout the green industry. From the EPA to OSHA to H-2B, Delaney shares the important updates in his exclusive column for Lawn & Landscape. Check back monthly for legislative updates in your area and around the country.

Landscape Industry Overview
Landscape services workers numbered slightly more than 1 million in the United States in 2006. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor, estimated there are more than 924,000 landscaping and groundskeeping workers, plus 110,000 first-line supervisors for those workers, across all industries.

EPA WaterSense Program
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still will not commit to reissuing the WaterSense guidelines on the landscaping sections and says it is still reviewing the comments. The green industry continues to insist the guidelines need to be reissued with the industry’s direct participation, and green industry national associations need to inform those who are in a position to help the EPA make the proper decision. I expect they will wait at least until 2009 to resolve the issue.

The National Turfgrass Federation
The National Turfgrass Federation, of which PLANET is a member, recently met in Washington, D.C., to push for more congressionally allocated dollars for turfgrass research. The Federation also met with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to investigate undertaking a possible national turfgrass survey. Turfgrass was mentioned as a specialty agricultural commodity in the recently passed farm bill, which gives the industry more recognition. The green industry associations that make up the Federation were encouraged in their future plans to help move along the Federation’s national turfgrass research initiative. To learn more about the group and how to help, visit www.turfresearch.org.
 
Florida Water Issues
A heated debate about the update to the “Florida Green Industries Best Management Practices for the Protection of Water Resources” manual took place at a meeting at the University of Florida and was broadcast to several Florida locations. Some proposed changes would have resulted in drastic changes in fertilizer applications recommendations, like four month blackout periods, but were avoided in the reprint of the manual. In addition, the industry in Florida was successful in having a model ordinance accepted in Jacksonville, and a copy of that model was included with discussion documents for a New Jersey proposal. This turn of events shows the importance of paying attention to what happens in all states, not just your own.

National Pesticide Information Center at Oregon Sate University
The National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) at Oregon Sate University has launched a new Spanish version of its Web site at htpp://npic.orst.edu/es. Last year, NPIC made services available over the phone in more than 170 languages and disseminated NPIC brochures and fliers in Spanish. Now that its Spanish Web site is operational, the organization’s next goal is to translate original NPIC publications (fact sheets and common pesticide questions) into Spanish. This is important because 41 percent of the 680,000 landscape services workers identified in 2006 were Hispanic or Latino in comparison with 16 percent of the total U.S. workforce, and that number has increased as the landscape industry has grown.

MSMA
It looks like some future label changes could affect who can use the pesticide MSMA, how it can be used, and where it can be used. It does not appear that these changes, if accepted by the EPA, will appear on the label for the next season. PLANET will continue to make our case and keep you updated.

The Department of Homeland Security No-Match Rule Update
The court’s preliminary injunction is still in effect. Last week the Department of Homeland Security filed its final rule, which does not change the injunction. The government stated it is planning to simultaneously file a motion to cancel the preliminary injunction and a motion for summary judgment on the merits of the case within the next two weeks. The industries filing the original suit will then need to respond and reply to both motions. It is possible that this response will not be filed until November 21, 2008. Therefore, the elections will be over before anything is resolved and might affect the next steps.

PLANET News
PLANET’s new Lawn and Landscape Issues Communications Toolkit is available for your review and comments. Its purpose is to provide the industry with resources to better understand the important issues and be able to respond effectively to them. If you need example responses to false and misleading articles, to prepare testimony, or to answer customers’ or employees’ questions, click here. Please review and suggest additions or changes to Tom Delaney at PLANET.

Wisconsin WGIF
It looks like the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects that is pushing the Landscape Architect Practice Law has reached an agreement on comprise language with the Wisconsin Green Industry Federation (WGIF) so the law can be introduced in 2009 without WGIF opposition. There are only a few states where this issue still needs to be resolved.

H-2B
A lame-duck session of Congress is expected around November 17, 2008. Until the 110th congressional session is adjourned, the lawn care and landscape industry will continue to push for the returning worker exemption. There is some discussion about passing another economic stimulus package. Therefore, we will communicate to the congressional leadership that the economic health of our industry is also important to the U.S. economy and they should include the H-2B returning worker exemption in any legislation that may be passed during that lame-duck session.
 
OSHA
With questions prepared by Tree Care Industry Association, PLANET recently surveyed its members to determine the extent to which they do tree work, especially tree removal. OSHA finally has acknowledged that its guidelines for the logging industry do not fit our industry, and some research is needed before OSHA can issue guidelines that better address the kind of tree work landscape and tree care industry professionals actually do, and how our industry can better protect its workers.