Twisted Definitions Continue To Strike

In a recent opinion piece, The Wall Street Journal notes that since the 1970s, annual federal appropriations bills have explicitly prohibited the federal workplace overseer from descending on small family farms. Specifically, OSHA does not have jurisdiction over “farming operations” with 10 or fewer employees. OSHA officials have found a novel way to circumvent this statutory restraint.

The regulators have simply claimed the authority to rewrite the definition of farming. A remarkable 2011 memo from OSHA’s enforcement chief to regional administrators at first acknowledges that the law prevents the agency from regulating small farms engaged in growing and harvesting crops and any “related activities.” But then the memo proceeds to instruct employees on how to re-categorize small farms as commercial grain handlers.

According the WSJ, OSHA inspectors have recently begun to descend on family farms, claiming the authority to regulate their grain storage bins. From the Senate floor, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) condemned OSHA’s “absolutely incredible” and “absurd” position, which he called “a blatant overreach in violation of the law.”

Sen. Johanns said that a small Nebraska farm with only one non-family employee was recently visited by OSHA inspectors and fined more than $130,000 even though “OSHA made no claim that anyone had been hurt.”

When the New Hampshire Legislature and Governor can agree to define a post hole digger as a “motor vehicle” in order to impose new regulations on farm equipment manufacturers and their dealers, we should not be surprised to learn that OSHA would jump at the chance to declare a family farm with one employee a “commercial grain handler”.

While the courts in New Hampshire have yet to rule on the constitutional issues raised in regard to the recently passed “motor vehicle” law, the Nebraska Senator and former Ag Secretary has already persuaded a bipartisan Senate coalition of 42 colleagues to urge Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to instruct OSHA to cease all actions based on its bogus interpretation of the statute.