Vol. XIII No. 3
May /June 2019
Serving Soil, Mulch, Compost & Wood Pellet Producers www.SoilandMulchProducerNews.com
NEWS
The Mulch & Soil Council — Serving Mulch & Soil Producers Since 1972
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he Mulch & Soil Council was founded in 1972 as the National Bark Producers Association (NBPA). The association was established after a group of manufacturers banded together to fight the immediate threat created by the Clean Air Act that banned tepee burners for wood waste. Then, in 1987, the NBPA was approached by a group of soil producers for help with regulations on package labeling. It was then that the NBPA evolved into the National Bark & Soil Producers Association (NBSPA). Finally, in 2001, the NBSPA became the Mulch & Soil Council with the adoption of Uniform Voluntary Product Standards and introduction of the first national product certification program for the industry. Since day one, the mission of the Council has been to define product quality and promote a fair and open marketplace. Although mulch products are generally unregulated, they constantly fall under regulatory attack, mostly as an unintended consequence of other government efforts. So, MSC works to create or change laws that assures our industry’s right to do business without unfair regulatory burden.
Not All Regulations Are Bad
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he Council is not opposed to regulations that help improve the marketplace. A perfect example are the weights & measures laws that promote fair competition among manufacturers. For example: by 1995 industry competition had become so cutthroat that manufacturers couldn’t compete fairly. Too many competitors were short-packing bags to cut freight and sell products below market value. In 1996, the MSC requested the National Institutes on Standards & Technology (NIST) coordinate with states for an industry-wide product inspection. Over 16 states checked the net contents of production lots containing hundreds of thousands of market samples
By Robert C. LaGasse, MSC Executive Director
over a 3-week period and found 80% of every lot inspected failed for short-packing. Heightened enforcement over the next several years, combined with a series of training programs conducted by the Council, gave a different result in 1998. Just 2 years after 80% of inspected products failed, only 20% failed, and no company that participated in plant manager training programs conducted by the Council failed. MSC’s history of effective industry representation has made it the leading advisor to federal and state governments on mulch and soil products. MSC has worked with the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to clarify the exclusion of Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA) from mulch products and debunking environmental claims that harvesting for mulch was destroying cypress forests in the U.S. MSC produced a report from USFS data that showed new growth exceeded mortalities and harvests for cypress by as much as 600% in most of the 7 coastal Atlantic and Gulf states. While false claims continue, they are a faint echo of the past. The CCA and cypress challenges may have been more than many associations experienced
in their entire existence, but is barely a start for the MSC. In its infinite wisdom, the 2008 USDA Farm Bill (passed in 2010) decided to promote energy generation that was unsustainable in the open market; so, they funded massive subsidies to move renewable biomass (intended to be switchgrass) to energy producers under the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). At the last minute, forest products were added to the definition of biomass (in November of that year). Then in December, members called reporting that supply contracts were being broken so landowners could get 3x market subsidies. The $74 million BCAP legislation spent $240 million in just 6 months mostly diverting raw materials from mulch producers, even though the law prevented redirecting biomass materials from existing uses. The MSC met with USDA officials in January who told us clearly, “All subsidies hurt someone, so you just need to get used to it.” The BCAP program was actually launched under a pre-authorization that required final approval. The Council began educating the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on Continued on page 3