Beltway Buzz, January 17, 2025

Day One Predictions. Monday, January 20, 2025, is Inauguration Day (as well as Martin Luther King Jr. Day). At the Buzz, we are well stocked with coffee and protein bars, as it is expected to be a busy day. We will obviously have a lot to discuss next week, but here are some policy issues that are on our radar.

• Immigration. This is obviously a priority issue for Republicans, and President-elect Donald Trump could issue multiple executive orders on the topic. For example, establishing new policies relating to the southern border, travel restrictions, temporary protected status, and “Buy American, Hire American,” could all be the subject of executive orders next week.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, as well as other members of the incoming administration, have been critical of DEI. The Buzz expects an executive order targeting DEI offices and programs within the federal government that could also implicate similar programs for federal contractors.
• National Labor Relations Board. President Biden established a new precedent by firing former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel Peter Robb on his first day in the White House. In turn, President-elect Trump is expected to fire the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo. Who will step up as acting general counsel in Abruzzo’s place remains to be seen.

Dates and Deadlines We Are Watching. Inauguration Day isn’t the only date we are watching here at the Buzz, and we already have our eyes on the following key dates and deadlines:

• OSHA—Proposed Heat Standard. As the Buzz noted last week, January 14, 2025, was the deadline for stakeholders to submit comments in response to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) proposed heat standard. The Buzz does not expect to hear much anytime soon about the fate of the standard under the incoming Trump administration. Of course, a final rule may never issue during the next four years, and it is possible that the new administration could issue a much narrower, more flexible version of the proposed standard at some point in the future.
• New provisions of the Biden administration’s H-1B modernization rule became effective on January 17, 2025.
• Subminimum Wage for Individuals With Disabilities. The comment docket for the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposal to eliminate the subminimum wage for individuals with disabilities closed on January 17, 2025. Former chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Virginia Foxx (R-NC), has blasted the proposal as “misguided and irresponsible.”

Trump Nominates Employment Policy Veteran. This week, President-elect Trump announced that he will nominate Keith Sonderling as deputy secretary of Labor. Sonderling most recently served as commissioner on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where he led the Commission’s artificial intelligence policy efforts. Prior to his role on the Commission, Sonderling served as acting and deputy administrator of the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division. As such, Sonderling is well-attuned to the employment policy issues facing the business community.

Republican Senator Pushes Labor Reform. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) is circulating a framework for labor reform legislation on Capitol Hill. The unusual move would codify some of the much-maligned labor reform ideas that both Democrats and labor union bosses have pushed over the last several years. While no legislation has actually been introduced, according to the framework that is being circulated, the bill would:

• require employers to post a notice of National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) rights. The NLRB tried doing this via regulation in 2011 (at the time, Hawley worked as both a law professor and an attorney at a religious nonprofit organization). The uproar from the employer community was incredible, and the regulation was struck down;
• prohibit “unsafe work speed quotas” in warehouses. This is taken from the ill-conceived Warehouse Worker Protection Act;
• prohibit mandatory employee meetings during which the pros and cons of unionization are discussed;
• require an “ambush election” in less than twenty days;
• require contract negotiations to begin within ten days after a representation election; and
• enact civil penalties, increased damages, and allow for a private right of action.

Even if a bill is introduced, its chances of passage in this congressional session are slim. Still, that a Republican senator from a state that voted twice for President-elect Trump is pushing such changes to federal labor law is a sign of the populist influence in today’s Republican Party.

OSHA Withdraws Proposed COVID-19 Standard. Three years and two days after the Supreme Court of the United States effectively put an end to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard (ETS), OSHA announced that it is withdrawing its proposed COVID-19 rule (that would have been permanent, as opposed to temporary). A final version of the rule sat at the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs since December 2022. In an accompanying press release, OSHA stated it withdrew the proposed rule “because the most effective and efficient use of agency resources to protect healthcare workers from occupational exposure to COVID-19, as well as a host of other infectious diseases, is to focus its resources on the completion of an Infectious Diseases rulemaking for healthcare.”

DHS Extends TPS. Late last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for individuals from El Salvador (from March 10, 2025, to September 9, 2026), Venezuela (from April 3, 2025, through October 2, 2026), Ukraine (from April 20, 2025, through October 19, 2026), and Sudan (from April 20, 2025, through October 19, 2026). The secretary of Homeland Security can terminate TPS designations by providing notice in the Federal Register at least sixty days prior to expiration.

Cut to the Chase. On January 13, 1808, Salmon P. Chase was born in Cornish, New Hampshire. Chase was an attorney and anti-slavery activist who helped establish both the Free Soil Party (which fought against the expansion of slavery in the territories) and then the Republican Party. Chase served as senator from Ohio from 1849 to 1855 and then served as governor of Ohio from 1856 to 1860. He was elected to the U.S. Senate again in 1860, but soon resigned to become President Abraham Lincoln’s treasury secretary. After the 1864 death of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (who authored Dred Scott v. Sanford), Lincoln nominated Chase to take his seat, and he was confirmed by the Senate on the same day. With this resume, Chase is one of a handful of politicians to have served in all three constitutional branches of government and as a state governor. Some other facts about Chase:

• Paper currency first appeared during Chase’s tenure as treasury secretary. He—rather immodestly—put his own picture on the $1 bill. Chase is also often given credit for ordering the phrase “In God We Trust” to be engraved on U.S. coins.
• Chase’s visage later appeared on the $10,000 bill, which was publicly circulated between 1928 and 1946. It is the largest denomination of U.S. currency ever circulated.
• Chase presided over the impeachment proceedings of President Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Chase died of a stroke in 1873 while still serving as chief justice. The Court subsequently draped his chair and the bench with a black wool crêpe—a tradition that has since been followed at the Court following the death of a sitting justice.