New Bush rule makes it easier to hire foreign workers

Dec 10, 8:43 PM EST

Administration changes to farm worker hiring afoot

By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As it prepares to leave office, the Bush administration is moving to make it easier for U.S. farming companies to hire foreign field workers, which farmworker groups say will worsen wages and working conditions.

Farm groups said that changes to the H2A visa program, used by the agriculture industry to hire temporary farm workers, were posted on the Labor Department's Web site at midnight Tuesday but have since been taken down.

Labor Department spokesman Terry Shawn said whatever was posted wasn't the final version of the new rule, which Shawn said would be released Thursday and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18.

The Bush administration published a proposed version of the new rule last Feb. 13 and received nearly 12,000 public comments, Shawn added. The next version will be a final rule and can take effect 30 days after publication. Some of its provisions would take effect in mid-January and others later in the year, the farmworker groups said.

Farm worker advocates and the United Farm Workers union said the version that appeared on the Web site would lead to a flood of cheaper workers.

"The government has decided to offer agriculture employers really low wages, low benefits, no government oversight to bring in foreign workers on restricted visas and thereby convince them they should do this instead of hiring undocumented workers," said Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, a group that advocates for farmworkers.

The changes in the posted version would drop a requirement that an employer get the Labor Department to certify it faces a worker shortage before it can get visas for foreign workers; instead, employers would be allowed to simply attest in writing to a shortage. That version of the new rule also would change the method for calculating wage minimums for workers and relieve employers of a requirement to recruit in states or communities where other employers already are hiring farm workers, Goldstein said.

But Assistant Labor Secretary Leon Sequeira said Wednesday evening the agency is not dropping the obligation to obtain certification, which is required by law.

Paul Schlegel, American Farm Bureau public policy director, said many of the changes will make the program a little less burdensome for employers. He said existing laws prevent employers from hiring foreign workers if the jobs can be filled by U.S. workers.

"My members want to make sure they have a legal supply of labor," said Schlegel, who added that he had not reviewed all the proposed changes.

The rule changes are a part of a pattern of last-minute regulatory changes being rushed into effect by the Bush administration before President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration.

The effect is to make it harder for Obama to change course on some policies favored by Republicans and the business community.

"We are hopeful that the Obama administration would recognize the utter mistake and unfairness of this proposal," Goldstein said. Congress has a procedure for reversing the rules, he said.

Many of the last-minute changes by the Bush administration have come in the area of public lands and the environment, including easing regulations on mining waste and allowing handguns in national parks. Another pending rule would grant greater leeway to railroads to transport hazardous materials through densely populated areas.

• New Bush rule makes it easier to hire foreign workers - Marmann
  • Farmer down the street says regular Americans - wont work the jobs anyway -"spoiled and lazy
    • That's not the whole story/reason. (sm) - ...
    • Farmer is lying to you..... - sm
    • college educated voter in the - smartalec
      • Then maybe that college educated voter......... sm - m
        • It is not that Americans won't do the jobs... - Kendra
    • Not 'spoiled & lazy' just prefer not to live in their - cars, and those jobs wont pay apt. rental.
      • No, they don't pay apt rent.... - sm
    • LOL!. That is where the problem started. Mexicans - would do hard labor that Americans wouldnt.nm

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O did not vote  on the issues 289 times. He voted yea 220 times and voted nay 128 times.

I haven't had the time to really check out the yea's or nay's but I will in the next couple of days.

to go to Washington to get FEDERAL (i.e. yours and mine) pork barrel money for a state and then give the residents a "rebate" you tend to be liked by voters.  Many interviewed were unaware of the trooper scandal, the per diem charges for staying in her own home, etc. Majority of people do not pay attention to governmental affairs -- too busy chasing wolves and chopping their forefeet off.

Just saw on MSNBC they are polling Barack/Hillary agains McCain (who has the bigger leads).  Of course they only show PA, Ohio, and Florida (the 3 states she did better in). 

New rule - If they are going to show polls, they should show them for all states!  Not just the ones where one candidate is doing better than the other.

Homeland Security, the Keystone Stasi, Now Tracks and Enforces Local Police Warrants

June 20, 2006: For many years, those working to create a total surveillance state have employed the salami tactic of taking away our freedoms one slice at a time. Laws that directly challenge constitutional rights, like the USA PATRIOT Act, are the spectacular exception. Agencies like FEMA quietly prepare plans for martial law, and have built a Shadow Government for military rule without need of a written order. The Bush administration for its part has constantly tested the waters, establishing new realities by fiat (as in its creation of the enemy combatant category to justify unlimited detention without charges), or floating test balloons like the Total Information Awareness program (which was withdrawn officially, even as the NSA's telephone surveillance proceeded to implement its spirit behind the scenes).

Now we must all realize that at some point, the salami runs out. It no longer makes sense to say that our government is creating a police state. The fact is, that state has arrived, complete with One Big Database and the establishment of universal jurisdictions. In an editorial published this week in New York Newsday, Ray LeMoine tells a memorable story of how he was detained by Homeland Security for several hours because of outstanding local police warrants relating to his sale of unlicensed T-shirts (Yankees Suck, among others). We dare not dismiss this as a minor matter; it shows that there is nothing about us in electronic form that Homeland Security does not know. Though he is clearly a believer in the official story of 9/11, LeMoine doesn't let his humorous tone hide the true meaning of his story: Homeland Security, the agency set up to combat terrorism after 9/11 has been given universal jurisdiction and can hold anyone on Earth for crimes unrelated to national security... erasing the lines of jurisdiction between local police and the federal state. If we do not fight back, the day when Homeland Security can detain people for being behind on their credit card payments is not far off. A national ID card with a chip of our complete financial, health and criminal records seems almost superfluous. Once again, 9/11 was a useful pretext for those who exploit terror to wage war on freedom. (nl)

 do that phase strike a familiar note?

for healthcare workers who refuse to participate in performing abortions or dispensing birth control methods which disagree with their religious convictions.  So now a woman's right to choose whether to abort her unborn child trumps a healthcare professional's right to adhere to their religious convictions?  The article even mentions Catholic healthcare facilities as not being exempt, and we know how the Church feels about abortions.  Unbelievable!!! 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/us/politics/28web-abort.html

Dirty politics equals dirty water.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rove13jun13,0,1520344,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

From the Los Angeles Times

EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief's Letter to Rove

The White House says the executive's appeal had no role in changing a measure to protect groundwater. Critics call it a political payoff.

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writers

June 13, 2006

WASHINGTON — A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove.

The new rule, which took effect Monday, came after years of intense industry pressure, including court battles and behind-the-scenes agency lobbying. But environmentalists vowed Monday that the fight was not over, distributing internal White House documents that they said portrayed the new rule as a political payoff to an industry long aligned with the Republican Party and President Bush.

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and get a response ASAP.

Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a keen awareness within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the economic, energy and small business impacts of the rule.

Environmentalists pointed to the Rove correspondence as evidence that the Bush White House, more than others, has mixed politics with policy decisions that are traditionally left to scientists and career regulators. At the time, Rove oversaw the White House political office and was directing strategy for the 2002 midterm elections.

Angelo had been mayor of Midland, Texas, when Bush ran an oil firm there. He is also a longtime hunting partner of Rove's. The two men first worked together when Angelo managed Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign in Texas.

In an interview Monday, Angelo welcomed the new groundwater rule and said his letter might have made a difference in how it was written. But he waved off environmentalists' questions about Rove's involvement.

I'm sure that his forwarding my letter to people that were in charge of it might have had some impression on them, Angelo said. It seems to me that it was a totally proper thing to do. I can't see why anybody's upset about it, except of course that it was effective.

Asked why he wrote to Rove and not the Environmental Protection Agency or to some other official more directly associated with the matter, Angelo replied: Karl and I have been close friends for 25 years. So, why wouldn't I write to him? He's the guy I know best in the administration.

White House spokesmen said Monday that the rule was revised as part of the federal government's standard rule-making process. They said the EPA was simply directed by White House budget officials to make the rule comply with requirements laid out by Congress in a sweeping new energy law passed last year.

The issue has been a focus of lobbying by the oil and gas industry for years, ever since Clinton administration regulators first announced their intent to require special EPA permits for construction sites smaller than five acres, including oil and gas drilling sites, as a way to discourage water pollution.

Energy executives, who have long complained of being stifled by federal regulations limiting drilling and exploration, sought and received a delay in that permit requirement in 2003. Eventually, Congress granted a permanent exemption that was written into the 2005 energy legislation.

The EPA rule issued Monday adds fine print to that broad exception in ways that critics, including six members of the Senate, say exceeds what Congress intended.

For example, the new rule generally exempts sediment — pieces of dirt and other particles that can gum up otherwise clear streams — from regulations governing runoff that may flow from oil and gas production or construction sites.

Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), who joined five Democrats in objecting to the rule, wrote in March that there was nothing in the energy law suggesting that such an exclusion of sediment had even entered the mind of any member of Congress as it considered the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Moreover, Jeffords wrote, the rule violated the intentions of Congress when it passed the Clean Water Act 19 years ago.

White House and administration officials disagreed.

At the EPA, Assistant Administrator Benjamin H. Grumbles said the rule responded directly to congressional action. He cited a letter from Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, endorsing it. He added that the rule still allows states to regulate pollution, and that it continues to regulate sediment that contains toxic ingredients.

Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for another senior lawmaker, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Monday that the rule was designed to hold oil companies accountable for putting toxic substances in the soil, but not for dirt that results from storms.

When it rains, storm water gets muddy, regardless of whether there's an oil well in the neighborhood, Miller said. Congress told EPA to do this, and now they have. If there's oil in the water, a producer has to clean it up. If it's nature, they don't.

The change in the rule occurred last year when staffers in the White House Office of Management and Budget began editing an early version drafted by EPA technical staff. The Office of Management and Budget oversees another division, the Office of Information and Regulatory Policy, which critics complain has served as a central hub in the Bush White House for making government regulations more business-friendly.

A spokesman for the White House budget office, Scott Milburn, said Monday that the White House's involvement in making rules was intended to ensure that agencies issue regulations that follow the law.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino rejected the suggestion that Rove was involved in the rule change. Rove frequently receives requests, she said, and that he tries to reply and direct those requests to the appropriate people. She said that for environmentalists to accuse Rove of manipulating the EPA rule was a typical overreach by administration critics.

That is quite an overreach, when it was the United States Congress that passed the Energy Act in a bipartisan way to ask the EPA to undertake this rulemaking, she said.

In their March letter, Jeffords and his Democratic colleagues asked EPA officials whether the correspondence with Rove influenced the final rule.

A response written by Grumbles did not directly address the Rove question. But the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups assert that they know the answer.

We can't say that Karl Rove walked over to OMB and demanded these changes, said Sharon Buccino, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's land program. But it is clear that there was direction coming from the top of the White House, and this was a result of the thinking of the White House as opposed to environmental experts at EPA.

Buccino called the rule yet another example of the Bush administration rewarding their friends in the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and the public's health.

In his letter to Rove, Angelo did not hide his political feelings. He thanked Rove for all you do, and added words of encouragement on another topic: The president has the opposition on the run on the Iraq issue.

His letter appeared to gain notice at the highest levels of the administration. Three months after Angelo sent it, a top EPA official wrote to tell him that the agency had decided to impose the temporary delay on the construction permitting rule for oil and gas companies.

The letter was copied to Rove, White House environmental advisor James L. Connaughton and then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.

God bless those people who came all the way down there, slept in their trucks in stifiling weather (because the media and gawking politicians hogged all the hotels that were left) and helped string line and get our power back on.  They are heros, as well as all those who donated time and goods.

On the other hand, SHAME on the people from Indiana who printed up a bunch of Katrina T-shirts and had the nerve to come down there to sell them!  Those who survived Katrina need no darn T-shirt proclaiming they did!

How does your husband feel about voting out in the open; no more secret ballots?  That's quite audacious!

Todd Palin is a card-carrying union guy, too.