Beltway Buzz, July 18, 2025

President Trump Nominates Two for NLRB. President Donald Trump nominated Scott Mayer and James R. Murphy to fill two current vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mayer is an in-house labor counsel, and Murphy is a former attorney with the Board. If confirmed, Mayer and Murphy would join Republican chair, Marvin Kaplan, and Democratic member, David Prouty, in returning the Board to a functioning quorum (with one remaining vacancy).

Senate Confirms USCIS Director. On July 15, 2025, the U.S. Senate confirmed Joseph Edlow as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Edlow is an attorney who has held various positions at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and USCIS. He served as acting director of USCIS in the final year of President Trump’s first term. The Buzz discussed Edlow’s position in May 2025 on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program. While USCIS has been relatively quiet so far in this administration, with a Senate-confirmed leader in place at the agency, the Buzz expects USCIS regulatory and subregulatory activity to tick up.

Senators Question NLRB, EEOC Nominees. On July 16, 2025, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) held a hearing on the nominations of Crystal Carey to be general counsel at the NLRB and Brittany Panuccio to serve as commissioner on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The Board has been without a general counsel since President Trump removed Jennifer Abruzzo on January 27, 2025, and the Commission has lacked a functional quorum since President Trump removed Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels (also on January 27). T. Scott Kelly, Zachary V. Zagger, and yours truly have the details.

Legislative Update. The Buzz will be monitoring the following bills that have recently been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives:

• Joint employer. The Save Local Business Act was reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives this week. The bill would clarify that direct and immediate control over a worker is necessary for a finding of joint employment under both the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The bill passed the House in 2017.

• College athletics. A bipartisan group of legislators in the House introduced the Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act (H.R. 4312). The bill seeks to establish a national framework for addressing college athletics by, in part, protecting the rights of student athletes to enter into name, image, and likeness (NIL) agreements, and ensuring that student athletes receive “comprehensive academic support and career counseling services.” Of particular interest to the Buzz, the bill provides that “no individual may be considered an employee of an institution, a conference, or an interstate intercollegiate athletic association based on the participation of such individual on a varsity sports team or in an intercollegiate athletic competition as a student athlete.”

Republican Senators to President Trump: No More PLAs. Certain Republican senators aren’t so happy that the Trump administration has doubled down on former President Joe Biden’s executive order mandating project labor agreements (PLAs) on federal construction projects of at least $35 million. As the Buzz recently noted, in a June 12, 2025, memorandum, Russell T. Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, wrote that the administration “supports the use of PLAs.” In a July 1, 2025, letter made public this week, twenty-one Republican senators write that the Biden-era executive order “threatens the competitiveness of infrastructure bids, increases construction costs, and delays work on federal construction contracts.” The letter asks President Trump to “reverse this Biden administration policy and restore the long-established government neutrality in federal and federally assisted contracting.”

OSHA Eases Penalty Guidelines for Small Businesses. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has announced changes to the penalties section of its Field Operations Manual “in an effort to minimize the burden on small businesses and increase prompt hazard abatement.” As a result of the update, a 70 percent penalty reduction is now available for employers with twenty-five employees or fewer (as opposed to the previous number of ten employees or fewer). New provisions also establish a “quick fix” penalty reduction of 15 percent for employers who immediately take steps to correct a hazard. Finally, a 20 percent penalty reduction is also now available for employers who haven’t previously been investigated by OSHA or an OSHA state plan or have had no serious, willful, or failure-to-abate violations in the last five years. According to the accompanying press release, the changes will make it “easier for small businesses to invest resources in compliance and hazard abatement.” John D. Surma has the details.

House Lawmakers Push for More OSHA Compliance Assistance. Speaking of a new-and-improved OSHA, on July 16, 2025, the House Committee on Education and Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing, titled, “Safe Workplaces, Stronger Partnerships: The Future of OSHA Compliance Assistance.” In his opening statement, Subcommittee Chairman Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) stated, “Instead of relying solely on inspections and investigations after a violation has happened, compliance assistance encourages a proactive approach to safety, which is essential to any effective health and safety management system.” Republicans and their witnesses focused on the importance of OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) and advocated for passage of the “Michael Enzi Voluntary Protection Program Act,” which would codify the VPP and require OSHA to set aside at least 5 percent of its budget to implement the program.

Congressional Women Make a Political Pitch. In a rain-shortened game this week, Team Congress beat their press corps opponents—dubbed the “Bad News Babes”—in the annual Congressional Women’s Softball Game. This was the sixteenth consecutive year that female members of Congress put partisanship aside to battle members of the media on the softball field. The annual game raises money for a charitable organization that assists young women with breast cancer. The Buzz was impressed to see political analyst Amy Walter take the field for the Bad News Babes this year. Walter was a featured speaker at Ogletree’s 2024 Workplace Strategies conference in Washington, D.C. Buzz readers are invited to join us at our 2026 National Workplace Strategies Seminar in Austin, Texas.