The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is seeking ideas on ways to deregulate, and Michigan Farm Bureau answered their call — submitting comments on seven burdensome regulations that its member-driven, grassroots policy supports changing.
“Americans are the most inventive, hardworking, and industrious people in the world,” OMB Director Russell T. Vought wrote in the request for information on deregulation issued on April 11.
“For too long, American dynamism and creativity have been stunted by onerous and unnecessary regulations. With this document, OMB seeks proposals to rescind or replace regulations that stifle American businesses and American ingenuity.”
Among MFB’s requests, the organization seeks to rescind the methodology for setting the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) used as a minimum wage in the H-2A program, noting that the AEWR relies on deference to so-called “agency expertise” rather than economic data, commonsense, or basic logic.
By reading the text of the AEWR rule, MFB said it’s clear that DOL promulgated the AEWR at a time when D.C. bureaucrats were supported by the longstanding deference afforded to the federal agencies under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984).
While Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “Chevron is overruled” in the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the AEWR deviated from the deference allowed under Chevron and is a complete infraction against the Loper Bright decision, MFB contends.
“The effect of the AEWR is plain to see,” MFB Labor Policy Specialist Nancy Nyquist wrote in the organization’s comments to Vaught.
“Today, more than 60% of the fresh fruit and 40% of the fresh vegetables consumed in the U.S. are produced by our foreign competition, primarily Canada and Mexico. This regulation, devoid of economic basis, forfeits our food production to our competition, forcing the shuttering of American farms and ranches.”
Nyquist also cited the Loper Bright decision in calling for the repeal of DOL’s 600-page Worker Protection Rule, which would extend unionization rights to H-2A guest workers, among other provisions.
In December 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi granted a preliminary injunction barring the DOL from enforcing the rule, adding two other court rulings that blocked the measure in certain states.
MFB also wants to see an H-2A Program Rule that requires substantially higher surety bonds to be held by farm labor contractors that many farmers rely on to help them find or supplement critical labor to maintain their businesses.
“Unlike other businesses, farmers and ranchers cannot pass along the added regulatory cost burden to their customers,” Nyquist wrote.
“Rather, added costs of regulation are borne solely by the farm or ranch. These increased costs make it prohibitive for farm and ranch families to engage in the H-2A program to supplement their needed workforce.”
Additionally, MFB is seeking an end to the Asylum Fee added to H-2A petitions by the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, calling it “one of the most offensive regulations to come out of the Biden administration.”
This rule substantially increased the costs of filing H-2A petitions for program users by adjusting the fees charged for petitions with named and unnamed beneficiaries, as well as requiring the filing of additional petitions.
“Illogically, this Rule also demands that America’s farm and ranch families foot the bill for the asylum program by charging an asylum fee on top of other filing fees, despite not using or benefiting from the asylum program,” Nyquist added.
“America’s farmers and ranchers should not be forced to pay for those seeking asylum in the U.S. The added costs of this Rule create a barrier for entry into the market and force other farmers and ranchers out of business.”
MFB is also seeking the rescindment of the DHS Worker Protection Rule that allows for the denial of petitions for employers who have settled a labor law or H-2A program violation without room for common sense, nuance, or due process.
Finally, Nyquist highlighted two rules from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), one of which allows union representatives to accompany OSHA inspectors on a “walkaround” inspection of non-unionized farm and ranch properties, while another adds redundancy and cost to farmers ongoing plans for heat injury and illness prevention.
As MFB noted in its comments, the ag community applauds the efforts to claw back overburdensome, damaging, and illogical regulations that diminish America’s ability to provide food for itself and the world.
“During a period of approximately 18 months, agricultural businesses had to incorporate more than 3,000 pages of new requirements from the Federal government into operations,” Nyquist wrote.
“These regulations are often detached from economic reality, common sense, and the Constitution. Instead, 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 and federal employees to push from desk to desk, while increasing costs, reducing efficiency, and crippling America’s competitiveness in the marketplace.”