White House is Trying to Run US By Executive Order: Congress and Supreme Must Act
NEW FEDERAL RULES are being issued at a fast pace, as the Biden administration seeks to prevent priority regulations from falling victim to the Congressional Review Act
NEW FEDERAL RULES are being issued at a fast pace, as the Biden administration seeks to prevent priority regulations from falling victim to the Congressional Review Act
The Brief - Top News of Today From Bloomberg Law
Saturday, April 20, 2024
NEW FEDERAL RULES are being issued at a fast pace, as the Biden administration seeks to prevent priority regulations from falling victim to the Congressional Review Act if Republicans seize the levers of power in Washington in November.
The rapid-fire run of new releases, including rules governing rights for pregnant workers and use of public lands, come as the expected deadline to stay clear of the potential target zone for the rule-rollback law could be as early as mid-May. The law gives Congress 60 days to “disapprove” of a regulation issued by a federal agency, and any regulation issued within the last 60 working days of the congressional session can be reconsidered in the next Congress — which is what the White House is trying to avoid. Here are some highlights of recent regulatory moves:
• Conservation will be defined as a “use” of public land. Western states with oil, gas, and mineral resources fear it will stifle drilling and mining. Read More
• Workplace Accommodation: Abortion was included along with pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, miscarriage, and other conditions that can trigger job accommodation rights under federal law. Read More
• Forever Chemicals: Two commonly detected types of PFAS were listed as hazardous substances under the nation’s Superfund law, the first instance of the Environmental Protection Agency directly taking that step. Read More
• Drug Discounts: The review process for resolving price fights between drugmakers and health-care providers participating in the federal 340B drug discount program was revamped. Industry and health providers are divided over the changes. Read More
• On the Radar: Several employment-related rules recently cleared the White House budget office, meaning they could be published imminently. That includes a rule expected to expand overtime pay protections to millions more workers, a retirement plan fiduciary advice rule, and a regulation to expand labor rights and protections to temporary agricultural workers. Other regulations that could be issued soon seek to better protect reproductive rights under federal health privacy law and shield LGBTQ people from discrimination in health care.
LITIGATION STEMMING from organizing at Starbucks Corp. presents the US Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority with another opportunity to continue its run of decisions that shift authority away from the executive branch and toward the courts, Robert Iafolla reports.
• A case to be argued Tuesday centers on how courts treat National Labor Relations Board requests for immediate court orders to protect or restore the status quo in workplaces while the agency handles an underlying unfair labor practice case.
• Starbucks is challenging a temporary injunction requiring it to rehire fired union activists. There’s a circuit split over which standard applies to such requests, and Starbucks asks whether it should be the “traditional, stringent four-factor test” or something more “lenient.” Read More
STICKING WITH STARBUCKS for a moment, it’s an understatement to say it’s challenging to keep track of the hundreds of unfair labor practice cases against the company that have flowed from union organizing battles at hundreds of coffee shops. Next week negotiators will begin the task of untangling everything — aiming for a settlement to resolve litigation and secure collective bargaining agreements, Robert Iafolla reports.
• It’s not simply about cutting a deal, even after Starbucks switched tactics a few months ago and chose to work with the union after years of aggressive opposition to unionization. One of the reasons why is the need for the parties to get settlement approval from different authorities within the National Labor Relations Board depending on where each individual case is in its life cycle, legal observers said.
• “It would be a very complicated process to unscramble all the eggs, given that the cases are in very different procedural postures,” said Michelle Devitt, a former NLRB lawyer who represents unions and workers for Willig, Williams & Davidson. Read More
• At some point in late March, union organizing at Starbucks eclipsed the 10,000-worker mark — a reminder that the campaign is far from over, Bloomberg Law legal analyst Robert Combs writes. In a first for Bloomberg Law subscribers, we provide step-by-step instructions that show how to replicate the research behind the article by using Bloomberg Law’s NLRB Petitions & Elections Tracker. Read More