Appropriations Process Leads to a Wild Week Ending with Wins

The H-2B community rode a roller coaster of emotions the last several days while key H-2B provisions were considered during the annual U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations process.  While things looked perilous at times during this week, we’re happy to report that we secured significant wins on the H-2B front on behalf of the landscape industry. We apologize in advance for this lengthier than usual article…. 

This week the House Appropriations Committee marked-up and advanced several of the 11 funding bills for fiscal year 2022.  Because Congress remains extremely dysfunctional, the Appropriations process is one of the only ways to pass legislation as riders to these “must pass” funding mechanisms.  For the landscape industry and specifically the H-2B program the appropriations process is a place for us to play both offense on positive provisions and defense against negative provision pushed by labor unions.  The H-2B program is regulated through both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) and the bills that fund both these Federal Departments came up for consideration this week and we detail what transpired on each below.