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The Social Security Administration (SSA), beginning in April 2019, has resumed sending "Employer Correction Request" letters, also known as "no-match letters," to every employer that has at least one Social Security no-match, meaning that names or Social Security numbers (SSNs) listed on an employer's Form W-2 do not match SSA's records.

The letters now ...

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has expressed concerns over recent glyphosate rulings and their impacts on U.S. agriculture. At a House appropriations subcommittee hearing, Perdue asserted that it would ‘devastating’ if glyphosate were pulled from the market and added that it has ‘exponentially’ increased crop production in the last 25 years.

“I&...

USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service has published a notice and request for comment regarding importation of plants established in growing media.  For context, foreign-grown plants in growing media (PIGM) are generally prohibited entry into the U.S. with the notable exception of Canada.  This is due to the fact that plants in growing media are inheren...

Craig Regelbrugge & Laurie Flanagan

On March 29, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it plans to release an additional 30,000 H-2B visas, that but that these visas would likely be limited to returning workers who had received visas during the 2016, 2017, or 2018 program years. The Fiscal 2019 Consolidated Appropriations Act had authorized Congress to rel...

The Green Industry Research Consortium, with funding support from the Horticultural Research Institute (HRI), is launching the National Green Industry Survey this month.  This represents the seventh time that this survey has been conducted since 1989. The purpose of the survey is to document trends in production, marketing, and retailing practices in the U.S. green industry.

T...

AmericanHort continues to monitor proposed changes to the overtime rules.  The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy is hosting a series of roundtable discussions on to gather input from small businesses about the potential impact of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposed rule which would increase the minimum salary for the “white collar&r...

The Department of Agriculture on April 11 celebrated the release of the 2017 Census of Agriculture, a vital data set published every five years by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). AmericanHort advocacy team members Dr. Jill Calabro, Tal Coley, and Tristan Daedalus attended the event, which was held at USDA headquarters.

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue addr...

Authors: Craig Regelbrugge & Laurie Flanagan

AmericanHort is very pleased to report that on March 29, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it plans to release an additional 30,000 H-2B visas for returning immigrant workers. This progress would not have happened without the steady advocacy push by our staff, leaders and members, state association partners...

AmericanHort successfully placed an op-ed in the Washington, D.C.- based publication, RealClearPolicy, on March 22 detailing the current situation faced by the horticulture industry concerning the vague agricultural exemption associated with the Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate. 

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