Immigration reform is a perennial issue for the landscape industry. The promise of Congress passing a comprehensive bill to address the nation’s broken immigration system doesn’t come about very often, but it reared its head again this week. Obama: 2-3 months for immigration reform Politico Earlier this week President Obama said legislators on Capitol Hill have only about two to... read more
More than 400 leading U.S. businesses and advocacy organizations–including the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET), Irrigation Association and the American Nursery & Landscape Association–signed a letter calling on the U.S. Congress on July 30 to enact immigration reform legislation. This move came one week after nearly 200 people participated in PLANET’s annual Legislative Day on the Hill event in Washington D.C.,... read more
Last week the U.S. Senate passed S. 744, Congress’ first serious attempt at comprehensive immigration reform since 2007. The bill, hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Eight,” led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), passed with a majority of 68 to 32 that included all Democratic and 14 Republican... read more
DENVER—According to an article in The Denver Post, city lawmakers all over Colorado are hearing both sides of the pesticide and herbicide debate. “The battle is so pitched that local lawn-and-garden pros fear that a Canadian-style ban on pesticides and herbicides looms and they’ll be left without a powerful tool to fight landscape-decimating pests and weeds,” the article states. To read the... read more
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) have introduced S. 175, legislation to eliminate what they consider to be a burdensome, costly and redundant U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit requirement for applications of pesticides. “This double layer of red tape is costly to the agriculture industry and consumers. It also takes aim at public health departments by... read more
ANLA says IR-4 Project is threatened with elimination under USDA’s proposed 2013 budget. The IR-4 Project was established by Congress in 1963 to assist domestic growers of fruits, vegetables, herbs, nursery and greenhouse plants, and other specialty crops by facilitating the registration of safe and effective technologies, through U.S. EPA, to protect them from insects, plant diseases, weeds and other pests.... read more
