Mr. President. I am very concerned with the final interim H2A regulations promulgated by the Department of Labor. I believe we in Congress have a differing point of view than those proffered by DOL when it comes to implementing this law. Many of my colleagues and I thought to streamline the H2 program so that farmers could have easier access to reliable. legal alien workers when domestic workers are not availble. and to cover the labor needs for those not qualified under the seasonal agricultural worker provision of the new law. The regulations limit employment tenure of H2A workers to less than 1 year. This limitation effectively excludes some farmers with yearround operations from participating in the H2A Program. such as the dairy and feed lot industries and the sheep and cattle industry. where herders and workers to handle the livestock are necessary. The program should include 3year contracts. Another defect in the H2A regulations is the methodology by which the adverse effect wage rate [AEWR] is calculated. It is regressive as well as inflationary. The regulation proposes to average the field and ranch hourly wage and use the average as a minimum for the adverse effective wage rate [AEWRI.