Beltway Buzz, September 19, 2025

The Latest on Government Funding. Republicans and Democrats this week rolled out two competing proposals to extend government funding beyond the current September 30, 2025, deadline. As the majority in the U.S. Congress, Republicans obviously favor their proposal and passed it in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 217–212 earlier today. The bill would extend current funding (which itself has been extended since the Biden administration) through November 21, 2025 (the final day that lawmakers are scheduled to be in Washington, D.C., before heading home for the Thanksgiving break). Congress is not scheduled to be in Washington, D.C., for the week beginning September 22, 2025, when all eyes will be on the U.S. Senate, which must do its part to avoid a shutdown. More on the potential impacts of a shutdown can be found here and here.

NLRB Challenges NY Labor Statute. After warning state governments that legislation granting local agencies control over certain private-sector labor matters is preempted by federal law, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Acting General Counsel William B. Cowen has sued the State of New York over the recent enactment of S.8034A. The new law, which was enacted on September 5, 2025, authorizes the New York Public Employment Relations Board to preside over private-sector union representation elections and unfair labor practice cases. The NLRB’s legal challenge argues that the New York law is unlawful because it “creates a parallel regulatory system that undermines the federal labor policy Congress designed to be national in scope.” The New York law—as well as similar efforts in California and Massachusetts—is a response to what local lawmakers view as unacceptable inactivity at the NLRB, due to its lack of quorum. Thomas M. Stanek and Zachary V. Zagger have the details.

EBSA Head Confirmed. On September 18, 2025, Daniel Aronowitz was confirmed as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). Aronowitz was part of a package of forty-eight executive branch nominees who were approved altogether by a vote of 51–47. This “en banc” voting is part of Senate Republicans’ new strategy for confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees to federal agency positions. Other DOL nominees, such as Jonathan Berry (solicitor of labor), David Keeling (assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health), and Andrew Rogers (Wage and Hour Division administrator), are still waiting for their confirmation votes.

CBP Biometrics Rule Clears OIRA. The White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has approved the issuance of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) interim final rule, titled, “Collection of Biometric Data From Aliens Upon Entry To and Exit From the United States.” Styled as an interim final rule, the pending regulation was not made available for public comment and may be issued by the CBP at any time now. Current regulations allow the CBP “to collect biometrics from certain aliens upon departure under pilot programs at land ports and at up to 15 airports and seaports.” According to the rule’s abstract on the OIRA website, the new rule will allow the CBP “to begin a comprehensive biometric entry-exit system” and will also “provide that all aliens may be required to be photographed upon entry and/or departure.” The forthcoming rule should not be confused with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) notice of proposed rulemaking, titled, “Collection and Use of Biometrics by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,” currently pending at OIRA. This proposal would apply to applications, petitions, or benefits requests “to ensure accurate identity verification and management throughout the entirety of the immigration lifecycle.”

USCIS Reopens Social Media Comment Docket. This week, USCIS published a notice in the Federal Register reopening for thirty days the comment period for an information collection request “to collect social media identifier(s) data on immigration forms.” The information request is based on Executive Order 14161, “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” and will purportedly allow USCIS “to assess an alien’s eligibility to receive an immigration-related benefit from USCIS” and “whether such grant of a benefit poses a security or public-safety threat to the United States.” USCIS received 1,186 comments during the original comment period, which closed on May 5, 2025. This latest notice does not provide a reason for opening a new thirty-day comment period. The deadline for submitting comments is October 16, 2025.

House Labor Committee Advances Workplace Bills. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced the following bills:

• The Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2025 (H.R. 1723). The bill amends the National Labor Relations Act to exempt Indian tribes and “any enterprise or institution owned and operated by an Indian tribe and located on its Indian lands” from the Act’s scope of coverage. A version of the bill passed the House in 2018.
• The Balance the Scales Act (H.R. 2958). This bill, which was the subject of a congressional hearing in July 2025, would limit the use of “common interest agreements” by the EBSA.
• The Michael Enzi Voluntary Protection Program Act (H.R. 2844) would require the DOL to establish a voluntary protection program (VPP) allowing employers to voluntarily commit to “establish[ing] comprehensive safety and health management systems” and would require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to set aside at least 5 percent of its budget allocation to implement the program.

HBD, WHT. William Howard Taft—an oft-cited historical figure here at the Buzz—was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio. We wrote about his jurisprudence as the tenth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as his establishing the tradition of the president throwing out the ceremonial first pitch on Major League Baseball’s opening day. But here are a few more facts about our twenty-seventh president:

• Early in his career—way before serving as president and chief justice—Taft served as the sixth solicitor general of the United States in the administration of President Benjamin Harrison. He is the only solicitor general to have subsequently served as U.S. president.
• Taft served as secretary of war from 1904 to 1908 under President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft and James Monroe are the only people to have served as both secretary of war and U.S. president.
• Public service ran in the Taft family. Taft’s father, Alphonso, served as both attorney general and secretary of war during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.
• Taft’s son, Robert Alphonso Taft, represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate and was a cosponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which amended the National Labor Relations Act to address unfair labor practices committed by unions and permit states to enact right-to-work laws, among other provisions.
• While Taft did install a larger bathtub in the White House to accommodate his six-foot, 300-pound-plus frame, there is no historical evidence of his having gotten stuck in the tub.

The Buzz will be off next week to attend Ogletree Deakins’ Corporate Labor and Employment Counsel Exclusive, which will take place September 24–27, 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Buzz will return on October 3, 2025.