Since President Donald Trump took office there has not been many regulatory actions taken by his administration. Jess McCluer explained how the president is changing the rules and dealing with his regulatory agenda to attendees of the 2018 Grain and Feed Elevator Society Exchange in Denver CO.
To the Tuesday session, McCluer, vice president of safety and regulatory affairs at the National Grain and Feed Association, described Trump’s actions as a deconstruction of the administrative state. With few political appointees at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, only one to be exact, and many other staffing changes at the Department of Labor and other government departments important to the feed and grain industry, the president’s agenda is not being implemented.
To put the administration’s deregulation efforts into perspective, 2017’s federal register had the fewest number of pages since 1993. There were 61,950 pages compared to 2016’s total of 95,894 during the Obama administration. With the realization that regulatory reform is going to take time for the member companies he represents, McCluer remains confident that action will speed up at OSHA when the assistant secretary is confirmed and in office.
McCluer also explained that NGFA and OSHA have a formal alliance. This agreement is the first of its kind signed by the Trump administration and its goal is to enhance communication between the two organizations. After the agreement’s renewal in two years, NGFA looks forward to working with OSHA employees on trainings to better understand the feed and grain industry.
