to be published at any time in the U.S. Federal Register at which point we will seek TPI member comments and support. Tis is also true for an upcoming Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (ANPRM) from the FMCSA for clarifying the ag commodity definition currently being used by federal and state enforcement officials. We will keep our members up-to-date on any of these avenues of relief, so be on the lookout for emails or other correspondence if you are interested in participating. A more detailed overview of this topic was written in the January/ February issue of Turf News.
Here, Dr. Casey Reynolds, along with the other NTF delegates, meet with officials from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) to discuss private-public partnerships to fund agriculture research.
commodities. Recent trucking regulations impacting the need for Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) and Hours of Service (HOS) have brought into question the definition of an agricultural commodity. Te current definition as stated in the United States Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 395.2 excludes natural grass sod from ag commodity exemptions. Tis is also true for horticultural crops (shrubs, Christmas trees, cut flowers, etc.) not typically considered as traditional agriculture. Turfgrass Producers International has been working the U.S. Department of Transportation on this issue since Phase II of the new ELD rules took effect in December of 2017. One avenue of relief, H.R. 1673 was introduced by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga) and currently has bipartisan support in the U.S. House of Representatives with 18 bipartisan cosponsors—12 Republicans and 6 Democrats. TPI has also recently secured support from Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) to be the chief sponsor in the Senate, which is vital for a bill to become law. While in Washington, D.C., we met with Ben Ayres, Senate aide to Sen. David Perdue as well as Rep. Austin Scott and his Congressional aide Craig Anderson to discuss this bill and continue to gather support from other offices. It is also important to note that other groups including AmericanHort, the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Farm Bureau, and American Trucking Associations have all expressed their support of H.R. 1673.
In addition to working with Congress and the Senate, TPI is also working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) directly through their “Waiver, Exemptions, and Pilot Programs” to request that all transporters of turfgrass sod be eligible for the Hours of Service (HOS) exception for agricultural commodities provided in 49 C.F.R. §395.1(k)(1). Tis request is expected
TPI Turf News July/August 2019
Lastly, we also met with representatives from the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to discuss permanent re-registration of the herbicide MSMA, which is a common trade name for the active ingredient “Monosodium acid methanearsonate.” MSMA is a broad-spectrum organic arsenical herbicide that has been registered for use in the United States since 1964. It is a Group 17 post-emergent herbicide that is labeled for control of many annual and perennial weed species such as crabgrass, dallisgrass, foxtails, johnsongrass, goosegrass, nutsedge, and others. Te use of MSMA and other organic arsenicals has been under pending threat of termination by the EPA for ten years now dating back to 2009. However, even though all uses of MSMA (except cotton) were to be prohibited after December 31, 2013, the EPA agreed to conduct a scientific review related to the mode of action of inorganic arsenic prior to the final cancellation of MSMA. For more information on this topic, check out the article titled, “MSMA Update for Turfgrass Sod Production,” on pages 14-15.
TPI will continue to work on legislative and regulatory issues for turfgrass seed and sod producer members in the U.S. and abroad. If you have any questions about any of these issues or have other legislative or regulatory items you would like TPI to work on please contact us to discuss them. We are here to serve you by promoting the natural grass industry any way we can.
Casey Reynolds, PhD, is executive director of Turfgrass Producers International. Email him directly at creynolds@
TurfGrassSod.org
All photos by Jonathan Moore, TPI’s policy consultant in Washington, D.C.
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