WASHINGTON - The American Nursery & Landscape Association’s 2001 Legislative Conference, Sept. 10 to 12, in Washington, D.C. provided attendees with opportunities to lobby Congress representatives about issues affecting the landscape and nursery industry. ANLA had a large attendance and raised significant funds for its agenda, despite events being limited on the final day of the conference due to the terrorist attack on America.
About 200 attendees took part in the sixth biennial ANLA Legislative Conference, which focused on an educational track about three primary issues: labor and immigration reform, ergonomic standards and industry-specific research funding. ANLA raised almost $40,000 to fund its enhanced campaign on labor and immigration reform, and its political action committee also raised about $30,000 that will go towards supporting candidates with ties to the landscape and nursery industry in their election and reelection campaigns in 2002.
The conference kicked of with a "grassroots bootcamp" on Sunday afternoon, said Craig Regelbrugge, senior director of government relations for ANLA. Michael Dunn, president of Michael E. Dunn & Associates, provided an orientation for the next days’ events to brief attendees on the issues at hand and help them be more comfortable about speaking to legislators. "It almost goes without saying that a number of folks in this industry find the prospect of sitting down with their congressional representatives and staff to be an intimidating thing," noted Regelbrugge. "This session went a long way toward helping people understand that folks up on the Hill put their pants on the same way we do."
LABOR AND IMMIGRATION. Regelbrugge said the ANLA’s agenda for labor and immigration reform was the primary topic of the conference. ANLA has concentrated efforts to lobby lawmakers to revamp current immigration laws to focus more on the landscape industry’s short-term and long-term labor needs, needs that include a large number of immigrant workers.
Specifically, ANLA is pushing an agenda that focuses on reform to the federal government’s H2B worker program that provides temporary visas for immigrants conducting seasonal labor and on earned residency for illegal immigrants who are already working in the country. The latter issue was near the top of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s list when he visited with President Bush in early September. Earned residency has also been a key part of Bush’s agenda, and the country was moving towards some possible resolve on the issue before the events of last week.
"In days leading up to Vicente Fox’s visit, there was a sense that the Bush administration was tapping the brakes," explained Regelbrugge, noting that some government officials warned that providing residency for aliens could be perceived as rewarding illegal behavior. However, he noted that Fox was adamant about the issue during his visit and Congress was likely to make some decisions before its winter break.
Progress has been especially evident on the agriculture front because that sector has been developing a program for several years. Therefore, Regelbrugge said agriculture could serve as a prototype for the service worker side of this industry, which includes landscape and nursery workers. But Regelbrugge said development of a program could have easily worked in the opposite direction - from the service side to the agricultural side. "The existing H2B guest worker program is a far more workable program than the agriculture guest worker program," he noted, "with one caveat, and that is participation in it is capped right now."
The second day of the legislative conference included speakers focusing on the Bush administration’s policies and priorities on immigration issues. Regelbrugge said a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) spokesperson was guardedly optimistic about the immigration policies that ANLA has been advocating: earned legalization to undocumented workers and guest worker program improvements.
ANLA split the conference agenda up to lobby the Senate on Monday and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, and presented orientations each morning to prepare for the visits. "These sessions gave ample opportunity for folks to ask questions and get comfortable with how to respond to some of the difficult questions we felt they would surely receive," explained Regelbrugge.
Monday’s Senate briefing included presentations from hired consultants working on the labor and immigration reform effort who are knowledgeable about the technical aspects of U.S. labor policy. The speakers spoke about the opportunities that exist to build coalitions to get ANLA’s immigration and labor reform issues at the forefront of congressional leaders’ agendas.
Tuesday’s House briefing included three speakers from the Hill who are "thought leaders" on immigration and labor issues, according to Regelbrugge. He said both Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, are strong proponents of earned legalization for some of the workforce that is currently in the country working illegally but contributing to the well being of the economy. The two also support the prospect of reform to guest worker programs.
The third speaker, Rep. Howard Berman, R-Calif., is not the biggest proponent of increasing rights for immigrant labor, said Regelbrugge. However, Regelbrugge was impressed that Berman, knowing that the audience was somewhat less than receptive to his ideas, agreed to speak at the conference. "The fact that he joined us speaks to the credibility that ANLA has been able to establish - not necessarily agreement, but credibility as a good faith negotiator," said Regelbrugge.
Berman has close ties to labor unions, particularly the farm workers union, so he has acted as a negotiator between the labor unions and lobbyists like ANLA that are pushing for immigrant labor reform. "He left leaving a strong indication that there’s room for this process to continue and that negotiations need to be elevated to next level," noted Regelbrugge.
| Terrorist Attack Changes Final Day Agenda |
"We were two blocks from the Capitol, so we were not necessarily in what anybody would call a comfort zone," said Regelbrugge about the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center during the final day of ANLA’s Legislative Conference. "You could go into the upper floors of our hotel and you could see the smoke over the Pentagon." He said that despite uncertainty about more planes targeting Washington, D.C., Tuesday’s House of Representatives briefing continued in preparation of House visits. "Folks stayed really focused - it was incredible to see, knowing what was going on," he said. Once federal government offices shut down for the day, conference organizers realized House visits would not happen and shifted attention to the attacks and to helping attendees secure hotel rooms or transportation home. A moment of silence and a prayer vigil were led by an attendee who runs a landscape business in Maryland and is also a minister. The attacks may slow down the progress on some of ANLA’s agenda issues, but Regelbrugge is confident the issues will be addressed in due time. "Realistically, everything changes in the short term," he expressed. "I don’t think that’s true in the longer term because the structural realities that brought our country to the point where we’ve been in this immigration and labor related dialogue are still with us." Because of the uncertainty on the issues now that Congress’ agenda has changed, ANLA has urged attendees and members to concentrate lobbying efforts at an appropriate time. The association will monitor Congress carefully and reintroduce its agenda when Congress is ready. "In the very short term Congress is going to rightly focus on the most essential issues - dealing with the appropriations process, dealing with the federal budget and a series of proposals to equip our law enforcement people with whatever they need and to address the terrorism issue as best as possible," Regelbrugge said. He is unsure whether Congress will be able to address ANLA’s key issues before breaking for the winter holiday. But he said the industry will need to keep a close eye on how immigration issues are addressed as part of the country’s national security plan, specifically any immigration-related backlash. "The good news is that Mexican farm workers and service workers in the hotel and landscaping industry are not a hot bed of terrorist activity," noted Regelbrugge. "Our country would be well-served over time by getting these people within the framework of our law." Because of the tragic events of Sept. 11, ANLA conference attendees missed several hundred visits with House representatives and the closing reception Tuesday night that would have included representatives from close to 130 congressional offices. Nonetheless, the conference was a success. "By virtually every measure, except the terrorist attack, this was the most successful conference we’ve had yet," said Regelbrugge. |
ERGONOMICS. Ergonomics issues were also a focus of ANLA’s legislative conference. Regelbrugge explained that in the waning days of the Clinton administration a final rule on ergonomics was issued that would have been extremely difficult for employers to comply with. Therefore, ANLA joined in two of the several lawsuits mounted against the decision, including one spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
In March, the new Republican Congress used a law called the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Clinton administration decision. The reversal vacated the ergonomics standard and precluded the Occupational, Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from establishing rules structurally similar to the ones previously in effect, thus leaving a period of no ergonomics rules.
"We believe that OSHA ought to fundamentally change its view of its appropriate role on ergonomics," explained Regelbrugge, "rather than issuing a broad-based regulation that is ambiguous and leaves a lot of employers wondering what they ought to do next." He said several workplace situations are pretty well understood, and OSHA should focus on those first to develop a framework to deal with less understood workplace situations among individual industries. "There may be room for industry guidelines as opposed to sweeping standards," he said.
Because workers’ compensation incentives exist for employers to create a safe workplace, Regelbrugge said mechanisms are already in place to encourage proper employee safety. And the landscape and nursery industry could play a key role in helping OSHA understand the needs of the industry. "There’s a lot of information sharing in this industry and a lot of focus on best practices. Some of that can be institutionalized more," he noted.
Regelbrugge predicted that the Bush administration was prepared to begin laying out a plan for addressing the ergonomics issue sometime in September. However, that could likely be put off until next year due to Congress’ concentrated efforts on addressing terrorism issues following last week’s attacks.
Regardless of the timing, Regelbrugge said OSHA could "change from a punitive regulatory agency to more of a partner designed to yield results rather than lawsuits" if it works with individual industries on policy reform.
PLANT RESEARCH. Because crops specific to the landscape and nursery industry have historically received only about 0.06 percent of the federal agricultural budget, Regelbrugge said ANLA is lobbying Congress to appropriate more funds to research aimed at ways to improve these crops. It’s a request that makes economic sense because the production side of the industry represents about 11 percent of the overall value of U.S. crops, he noted.
ANLA is seeking appropriations for an additional $1 million for research next year with the ultimate goal of a $20 million research initiative. The industry currently receives $4.7 million that is funneled through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research arm, the Agriculture Research Service.
Industry-related agriculture research focuses on items like disease and insect resistance and the ability to deliver a healthy plant that is going to better survive transport and installation into a landscape. Additionally, research is aimed at determining ways to develop crops with reduced risk materials that are not likely to be the target of regulatory actions to take them off the market.
The author is Internet Editor of Lawn & Landscape Online.
