Beltway Buzz, February 27, 2026

DOL Issues Independent Contractor Proposal. Today, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, titled, “Employee or Independent Contractor Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.” The proposal would officially rescind the January 2024 regulation promulgated by the Biden administration, which the DOL is no longer enforcing. The DOL argues that the 2024 rule “fails to provide an analysis for distinguishing between independent contractors and employees under the FLSA that is sufficiently clear and leads to predictable outcomes.”

In its place, DOL proposes a new independent contractor test that largely follows the regulation that was finalized in the closing days of the first Trump administration in 2021 but never went into effect. As in the previous proposal, this latest effort would adopt an “economic realities” test for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee. This test focuses on two core factors: the nature and degree of control over the work, as well as the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss. The proposal also readopts the six illustrative examples contained in the 2021 rule (while tweaking the example relating to speed-limiting devices on vehicles) and includes two new practical examples that illuminate the “amount of skill required for the work” factor.

Unlike the 2021 rule, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) analysis set forth in the proposed rule would also specifically apply when determining employee or independent contractor status under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The proposal notes, “Workers and businesses alike would benefit from the simplicity and certainty of having a single uniform standard for assessing employee or independent contractor status under all three laws.” Comments on the proposed rule are due on or before April 28, 2026.

Margaret Santen, Catherine D. Catoe, and Leah J. Shepherd have additional details.

NLRB Scrubs Regulatory Text to Accurately Reflect Joint Employer Reg Status. This week, the National Labor Relations Board performed a bit of administrative housekeeping by updating the Code of Federal Regulations with the text of the joint-employer rule the Board issued in 2020. Buzz readers are well aware of the joint-employer policy pendulum swings over the last decade plus, and likely remember that this 2020 rule was replaced by the Board with a different joint employer rule on October 27, 2023. That rule was subsequently vacated by a federal district court in Texas in March 2024. Since the 2023 rule never went into effect, the 2020 rule has remained the applicable joint employer standard at the Board. This week’s action by the Board removes the text of the vacated regulation from the rule books and replaces it with the 2020 rule text. Elizabeth M. Soveranez and Zachary V. Zagger have the details.

USCIS Seeks Restriction of Work Authorization for Asylum Seekers. On February 23, 2026, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a proposed rule entitled “Employment Authorization Reform for Asylum Applicants.” Key components of the proposal include the following:

• USCIS will pause acceptance of initial (not renewal) work authorization applications when USCIS’s average processing time for affirmative asylum applications over a consecutive period of ninety days exceeds 180 days. Due to the current backlog of asylum cases, the proposal anticipates that this provision will result in an initial pause of acceptance of asylum-based work authorization applications that “may last from 14 to 173 years, or longer.” The proposal notes that this calculation does not account for the other proposed changes, which “would also shorten those processing times.”
• USCIS will also require asylum seekers to wait 365 days from receipt of their completed asylum application before applying for work authorization (the current waiting period is 150 days).
• USCIS will also require applicants seeking work authorization, including renewals, to submit biometric information.

Comments are due on or before April 24, 2026.

House Lawmakers Examine Paid Family Leave. On February 25, 2026, the House Committee on Education & Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing entitled, “Balancing Careers and Care: Examining Innovative Approaches to Paid Leave.” Republicans on the subcommittee noted the need for paid family leave while pointing out the difficulties employers have with complying with state and local requirements that span multiple jurisdictions. Accordingly, they advocated for the bipartisan “More Paid Leave for More Americans Act” as a step in the right direction. On the other hand, Democratic members of the subcommittee touted the perceived benefits of state-based paid leave programs, criticized voluntary models as “low quality,” and advocated for universal paid family leave, such as the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act. While Republicans and Democrats are at least talking about paid leave, and at least a handful of them have joined together on the “More Paid Leave” bill, achieving consensus on a national framework remains a challenge.

Grand Canyon, National Park. Yesterday in 1919, 107 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Grand Canyon National Park Act, establishing the Grand Canyon as the United States’ fourteenth national park. (Yellowstone, established March 1, 1872, was the nation’s first national park.) If you’re wondering what took so long for the Grand Canyon to achieve this status, don’t blame Benjamin Harrison. As a senator from Indiana, the future U.S. president began introducing bills to grant national park status to the Grand Canyon as early as 1882. As president of the United States, Harrison created the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve in 1893. (It was one of his last acts as president and the first act taken to protect and preserve the Grand Canyon.) After Harrison’s term of office, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft all served as U.S. presidents until President Wilson signed the Grand Canyon National Park Act well into his second term.