FEDA NEWS & VIEWS
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Fighting for a Fair Seat at the Table
Good regulation starts with good input — and our industry deserves to be heard before the rules are written, not after.
We’ve spent enough years in the foodservice equipment and supplies industry to understand that regulation itself isn’t the enemy. What wears on businesses like ours is regulation written in a vacuum, by agencies that never picked up the phone to ask how
a warehouse operates or learn how real-world factors influence equipment design. The Corporate Transparency Act is an example of this disconnect in action. On the surface, the beneficial ownership reporting requirements may have seemed like a reasonable way to tackle illegal activities like tax fraud and money laundering, but its implementation swept up 32 million businesses — the vast majority of which were doing things the right way. The law buried small and midsized companies in paperwork, with murky deadlines and steep penalties. There’s also the Biden administration’s interpretation of the joint employer rule, which redefined “employer” so broadly that it put routine business relationships — the kind FEDA members and many of their franchise customers rely on every day — at legal risk. When agencies rewrite the rules without asking the people who’ll live under them, we end up spending more time on compliance and less time serving our customers. Fortunately, FEDA and its advocacy partners are working hard to make sure businesses like ours are heard. Their efforts helped persuade policymakers to drop the beneficial ownership reporting requirement and prompted the Department of Labor to begin work on a new, more sensible joint employer rule.
State-level extended producer responsibility laws for packaging are the newest version of this problem. A handful of states, led by Oregon, have moved to shift packaging recycling costs and reporting burdens onto distributors, often with compliance schedules that outpace any real guidance on how to meet them. FEDA has been tracking these laws state by state, and it has published resources on
feda.com to help members figure out what applies to them
and when. If you haven’t looked at that page yet, it’s worth your time to go through it.
The association is also working to advance legislation like the BUILD America 250 Act, which would provide $580 billion in funding for much-needed transportation infrastructure projects over the next five years. Distributors and manufacturers both know that supply chain reliability is the difference between a delivery arriving on time and a customer looking elsewhere. FEDA continues to advocate for critical legislation that strengthens the road and rail networks our industry depends on. Then there’s the equipment side of the business,
where rules governing how much electricity equipment can consume or what materials can be used change every few years. Consider the original implementation schedule for phasing down certain refrigerants under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act. It would have reshaped how manufacturers build commercial refrigeration equipment and limited what distributors can sell before alternative refrigerants were truly ready for the market. Based in part on feedback from our industry, the EPA recently announced a revised schedule that pushes stricter standards out to 2032. None of those regulatory adjustments happen by accident. They happen because business leaders get involved. The FEDA Congressional Visits, held every March, give members an opportunity to sit down directly with their legislators and explain what these policies mean for their companies. It’s one of the most effective things FEDA does, and it works because the people telling the story are the ones living it.
If your business has felt the weight of a piece of legislation or regulatory rule that never should have made it past the drafting table, you’re not alone. We encourage you to use FEDA’s resources, check in on the FEDA Advocacy Center, and join us in Washington, D.C. The industries best positioned to shape good policy are the ones that speak up before the ink dries.
Dave Stafford is the president and CEO of Stafford- Smith and a co-chair of the FEDA Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Council.
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