Another AgJOBS amendment fails in the Senate
Another AgJOBS amendment fails in the Senate
WASHINGTON -- Another attempt to secure legal farm workers for labor- starved producers failed May 20 when the Senate struck down an H-2A overhaul that was attached to the emergency war-spending bill.
On May 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed by a 17-12 vote to attach the agriculture worker language to an emergency spending bill requested by the Bush administration to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Agriculture needs a consistent workforce," Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) said as the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee weighed the amendment. "Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they can't pick and they can't pack. And the time has come for Congress to step up to the plate."
"This amendment is a clean, simple, temporary measure to solve an emergency in agriculture," said Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who co-sponsored the measure. "It does not provide any amnesty path to citizenship; there are no green cards, and it would expire in five years to give Congress time to work out acceptable long-term reforms."
But using a Senate point of order, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) stripped the immigration language from the war-spending bill, saying it was not appropriate to legislate policy on an appropriations bill, according to Susan Irby, a spokesman for Sen. Craig.
The Idaho senator plans to continue fighting for the legislation this year, she said. "He's not giving up."
The pilot program, a slimmed down AgJOBs, would have capped temporary farm labor at 1.35 million workers and sunset after five years. Farm laborers would have been required to pay a fee, undergo a background check and commit to working at least 100 days a year in agriculture for the next five years to become eligible for the program.
It would have revamped the H-2A program by streamlining the application process and placing the Labor Department on a seven-day deadline to act on an employer's request for H-2A workers. It would have frozen the H-2A wage standard at the 2007 level for three years while a new wage standard is studied. It also would have changed the H-2A program by allowing employers to give workers a housing allowance if there is adequate rental housing available and no longer pay transportation costs in certain cases.
"Unless Congress acts to ensure stable and legally authorized farm labor, we will soon be as dependent upon foreign nations to provide us food as we are for energy," said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a group that has long advocated AgJOBS and pushed for the pilot program.
John Young of the New England Apple Council said that the bill contained badly needed fixes to the H-2A program, upon which New England growers depend.
Mr. Young said that the groups opted not to jeopardize the 2007 farm bill with immigration issues, but with few bills moving in the Senate, the much desired emergency war-spending bill seemed like the best fit.
On May 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed by a 17-12 vote to attach the agriculture worker language to an emergency spending bill requested by the Bush administration to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Agriculture needs a consistent workforce," Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) said as the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee weighed the amendment. "Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they can't pick and they can't pack. And the time has come for Congress to step up to the plate."
"This amendment is a clean, simple, temporary measure to solve an emergency in agriculture," said Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who co-sponsored the measure. "It does not provide any amnesty path to citizenship; there are no green cards, and it would expire in five years to give Congress time to work out acceptable long-term reforms."
But using a Senate point of order, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) stripped the immigration language from the war-spending bill, saying it was not appropriate to legislate policy on an appropriations bill, according to Susan Irby, a spokesman for Sen. Craig.
The Idaho senator plans to continue fighting for the legislation this year, she said. "He's not giving up."
The pilot program, a slimmed down AgJOBs, would have capped temporary farm labor at 1.35 million workers and sunset after five years. Farm laborers would have been required to pay a fee, undergo a background check and commit to working at least 100 days a year in agriculture for the next five years to become eligible for the program.
It would have revamped the H-2A program by streamlining the application process and placing the Labor Department on a seven-day deadline to act on an employer's request for H-2A workers. It would have frozen the H-2A wage standard at the 2007 level for three years while a new wage standard is studied. It also would have changed the H-2A program by allowing employers to give workers a housing allowance if there is adequate rental housing available and no longer pay transportation costs in certain cases.
"Unless Congress acts to ensure stable and legally authorized farm labor, we will soon be as dependent upon foreign nations to provide us food as we are for energy," said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, a group that has long advocated AgJOBS and pushed for the pilot program.
John Young of the New England Apple Council said that the bill contained badly needed fixes to the H-2A program, upon which New England growers depend.
Mr. Young said that the groups opted not to jeopardize the 2007 farm bill with immigration issues, but with few bills moving in the Senate, the much desired emergency war-spending bill seemed like the best fit.
