The Department of Homeland Security made a decision late last week on how many additional H-2B visas will be issued this year.  The total number of additional visas will be 35,000, which is 10,000 less than the 45,000 visa number GCSAA had been hearing would be distributed. Further, the visas are not being made available all at once.  Instead, 20,000 visas are being made available April 1^st and 15,000 visas are being made available May 15th.  Finally, 10,000 of these visas – for either April or May 1^st – must come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.  The DHS’s rationale for this carve-out is that 1) these nations are doing more to promote border security and 2) these nations are currently underrepresented in the H-2B program.

Chava McKeel, GCSAA’s director, government affairs, spent a busy week in Washington between December 9-13. The week started out with her participating in the SFIREG meeting at the U.S. EPA offices. The State FIFRA Issues Research and Evaluation Group (SFIREG) and it’s working committees provide a platform for the states and EPA to resolve challenges to successful implementation of pesticide programs and policies in the USA and territories.  Full SFIREG consists of state representatives from the 10 EPA regions who come together biannually to meet with EPA staff.  SFIREG’s activities are supported by a grant through EPA, in recognition of the strong co-regulatory relationship required by the states’ primacy role in pesticide enforcement and/or certification programs.

Congress allowed for an additional 69,000 visas in the FY19 Omnibus Appropriations bill and the Department of Homeland Security responded with 30,000 visas in May 2019. Our advocacy goal is to see that Congress includes the full 69,000 in the next appropriations bill which is expected to be complete by the end of December 2019.

GCSAA will host an H-2B Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 13.

The National Alliance for Accessible Golf has a link to the National Alliance for Accessible Golf search engine database for facilities, programs and instructors on its website whereby golf course superintendents can enter accessibility related information into the database for their golf facility. 

Chava McKeel, GCSAA’s director of government affairs, attended and spoke at the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) Leadership/Legislative Conference in Raleigh, N.C. on Friday, Sept. 13, 2019. As part of its conference, the CMAA hosted an advocacy panel discussion to highlight the most pressing trends in the golf industry.

The 2019 RISE Annual Meeting was held in Tucson, Ariz., August 26-28, 2019. Chava McKeel, Bob Helland and Michael Lee — GCSAA’s government affairs team — represented the association at the annual meeting, which focused on industry unity, broadening the view of what is considered advocacy and identifying challenges that lie ahead in the specialty pesticide and fertilizer space. The team was able to network with important industry partners throughout the conference.

GCSAA has joined landscape professionals, agriculture, and others in the fight to ensure that superintendents continue to have access to the plant biostimulants vital to golf course management.  Plant biostimulants help natural plant nutritional processes, which improves the health, growth and quality of turfgrass. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering efforts impacting how these important tools should be registered and brought to market.  If not done right, this could restrict access to valuable products such as seaweed extracts. That’s why GCSAA continues to work to ensure regulators get it right, including recent comments submitted to the EPA.