Last week, the National Milk Producers Federation expressed their pleasure with an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, proposed by representatives Dan Newhouse and Henry Cuellar that will allow the dairy industry to participate in the H-2A program. NMPF’s Senior Vice President for Government Relations Paul Bleiberg, said the amendment is very important to the dairy industry.

loading...

"We've been trying to push for quite a while to get dairy meaningful access to the H-2A program and so we're grateful for Representative Cuellar and Newhouse to continue their bipartisan push in this government funding measure to make dairy eligible, at least temporarily for the duration of the measure.”

Bleiberg said NMPF is encouraged that the proposal is bipartisan and has already cleared an important hurdle with the House Appropriations Committee.

"Now in the past, we've been able to get this language included in the House measure just like we did here. But sometimes when they're having the more global negotiations in Congress they decide to leave out immigration provisions as a whole. So unfortunately, this provision could get pulled out.”

Homeland Security Appropriations bill moves to the full House for a vote. If passed, then it will move on to final negotiations between the House and the Senate for Fiscal Year 2022.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail gvaagen@cherrycreekmedia.com

More From PNW Ag Network