Trump Orders Review of Regs for Farmers
This story appears in the May 1 print edition of Transport Topics.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at promoting agriculture and rural prosperity by cutting regulations for farmers and food processors.
For Maureen Torrey, who operates a small trucking company and owns a dairy and vegetable-growing operation in Genesee County, N.Y., with her husband, Paul, the event provided an opportunity to express her frustration during a meeting at the White House.
“We can’t keep up with all of the new regulations,” Torrey said she told the president. “Five years ago, I spent 80% of my time on marketing and growing my business and 20% on paperwork. Now it’s 80% on paperwork.”
In particular, Torrey said, she wants to see relief from a requirement that drivers use electronic logs to record hours of service. “I’m afraid of losing good people,” Torrey said of the rule that is slated to take effect in December. “Our drivers feel like people don’t respect what they do and that having an electronic tracking device will make it harder to do their job.”
The trucking company, Paul Marshall Produce, hauls vegetables from packing sheds in upstate New York to produce markets in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and points in Maryland and Virginia. The fleet consists of 15 tractors.
Torrey also wants the Trump administration to revisit recently implemented regulations related to food transportation and H-2A visas for farm laborers.
The H-2A program allows U.S. employers who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs, according to the Department of Homeland Security. To qualify, an employer has to offer temporary or seasonal jobs and must demonstrate that there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available to do the temporary work, among other criteria, the agency said.
Trucking industry officials say it is highly unlikely that the administration will be able to change laws already in place.
“That ship has sailed,” said Jon Samson, executive director of the Agriculture & Food Transporters Conference of American Trucking Associations.
While there could be some exemptions granted from the electronic logging and food transport regulations, Samson said he does not foresee a “slowdown, retreat or pullback from those requirements.”
In the executive order, Trump established an interagency task force of Cabinet secretaries and administration officials to identify legislative, regulatory and policy changes to promote American agriculture. The task force has 180 days to complete its work.
Heading the task force will be George “Sonny” Perdue, the newly confirmed secretary of agriculture.
Formerly the governor of Georgia, Perdue has ties to trucking, having been a partner with his cousin, David Purdue, in the investment firm Purdue Partners that once owned Benton Express, a defunct regional less-than-truckload carrier in Atlanta.
