NCAE Advocates for End to Regulatory Red Tape

The National Council of Agricultural Employers says it has highlighted seven burdensome rules as a Department of Justice task force seeks input on regulations that impede economic growth.

The National Council of Agricultural Employers says it recently shared comments on seven regulatory roadblocks that impede U.S. farmers and ranchers’ ability to achieve and sustain the American dream. The remarks come as a Department of Justice task force seeks suggestions to unearth anticompetitive regulations.

“Over the past four years, America’s farm and ranch families have found themselves drowning in a turbulent regulatory sea,” Michael Marsh, NCAE president and CEO, said in a letter to Abigail Slater, assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s antitrust division. “Many of these were promulgated by federal regulators who were seduced by special interest groups which aim to weaken American families, businesses and the American economy.”

Marsh warned in the letter that these regulations have resulted in more family farms and ranches going out of business, which impacts the availability of U.S.-grown food in grocery stores. Marsh cited an 18-month period where agricultural businesses had to incorporate more than 3,000 pages of new federal government requirements.

“Over the past four years, the disdainful tenor used throughout the promulgation of many of these regulations make it clear that their promulgation is a direct result of the regulatory capture as described in the task force’s statement,” Marsh said.

In soliciting stakeholder comments, the DOJ’s Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force said it will support deregulation initiatives of agencies for regulations that pose the greatest barriers to economic growth, NCAE said.

In the letter, the trade organization focused on agricultural employers’ labor issues said it advocated for the examination, withdrawal or rescission of regulations including the Department of Labor’s Adverse Effect Wage Rate, as well as the Labor Department’s Worker Protection Rule and the H-2A Program Rule; the Department of Homeland Security’s Asylum Fee Rule, as well as the DHS Worker Protection Rule; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Walkaround Rule and the OSHA Heat Rule.

“Rather than resulting in any benefit to American farmers and ranchers, American workers or American taxpayers, the point of the regulations seems merely to create more paperwork for employers to file and federal employees to push from desk to desk, while simultaneously increasing compliance costs, reducing efficiency, and crippling America’s competitiveness in the marketplace,” NCAE said in the letter. “For American agriculture to remain competitive at home and in foreign markets, this cannot continue.”

Source: The Packer