Gregg RobertsonNov 3, 2023
Last Friday, Dec. 7, funding for several federal agencies was due to run out unless Congress passed a set of appropriations bills, which we hoped would contain reforms to the H-2B guest worker program. Congress defers action Unfortunately, the death…
With the Nov. 6 midterm elections just days away, what can we expect come Jan. 1 in the new Congress? The consensus of the pollsters and pundits is the U.S. House of Representatives will flip from Republican control to Democratic.…
The H-2B returning-worker provision and some modest H-2B reforms did not make it into the fiscal year 2019 federal appropriations bills, as business advocates had hoped. Appropriations bills, except DHS The House and Senate sent several appropriations bills to President…
This summer, the landscape contracting industry has faced what may be the tightest labor market in its history. With the economy running at full tilt, the unemployment rate at near all-time lows and a labor market that eschews working outside…
For an industry that spends most of its time outside, the increase in diseases caused by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas should be a huge concern. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which tracks disease incidence nationally,…
For a moment in mid-June it seemed like the stars might be aligning for getting the returning-worker exemption reinstated in the H-2B visa program. If reinstated, the returning-worker exemption would not count those workers who had been granted visas…
Last Sept. 23, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) silica dust rule went into effect. This regulation is designed to protect workers from exposure to excessive levels of airborne silica dust that comes from cutting, drilling, sanding or grinding…
A bill recently introduced in the Louisiana House of Representatives could bring a halt to the use of private professional certifications in that state. Certifications that are offered by trade associations and other private organizations by groups such as the…
Taking advantage of the “must-pass” omnibus federal spending bill for fiscal year 2018-2019, advocates for the H-2B guest-worker visa program managed to get an extension of the authority for the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security to increase the 66,000…
The herbicides 2,4-D and dicamba have been around for a long time. Both have been go-to herbicides in the fight against weeds, both in production agriculture and landscape maintenance. But their growing use by production agriculture is causing concern due…
On Dec. 21, not three months after the start of the federal fiscal year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it had reached the six-month cap of 33,000 visas for the H-2B guest-worker visa program used by many…
Fulfilling his promise to give Americans “an incredible Christmas gift,” President Trump signed a $1.5 trillion tax bill on Dec. 22. What this tax bill will mean to you and your company may take some help from your tax…
As I am writing this blog, the U.S. Senate is debating its version of a tax bill that could dramatically change the country, from the way that our businesses operate to how we make personal decisions about where to…
In September 2014, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) received a call from a company near Reading, Pa. Employees had found a strange bug at the back of their property in a tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) grove. When the…
Last month, I spent two days in Washington D.C. with about a hundred green industry company owners and state and national association staffers to push forward the industry’s agenda with Congress. The effort was organized by AmericanHort, a national…
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