Beltway Buzz, April 17, 2026

President Trump Nominates Two for NLRB. President Donald Trump has nominated James Macy to fill the remaining Republican seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In addition, David Prouty, whose term is set to expire in August 2026, has been renominated for another five-year term on the Board. The remaining Democratic seat will remain unfilled for now.

A management-side attorney, Macy currently serves as director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. Assuming he is confirmed, Macy will join Republican members Scott Mayer and James Murphy (the chairman of the NLRB) to give Republicans a majority through at least December 2027, when Murphy’s term expires. Members of the business community are hopeful that this will give the Board sufficient time to revisit some of its Biden-era decisions on issues such as ambush union elections, employer speech restrictions, employer handbook policies, whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor, and whether offensive or abusive employee conduct can be considered protected concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act, to name a few.

OSHA Renews National Emphasis Program Focused on Heat Hazards. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has updated its National Emphasis Program (NEP) focused on protecting workers from heat-related hazards. According to an agency press release, “[h]eat illness remains a serious hazard for indoor and outdoor workers,” and the revised NEP “allows OSHA to better focus on outreach, compliance assistance, and enforcement efforts in high-risk industries and promote effective prevention practices.” OSHA is updating the NEP on heat while continuing to move forward on a heat–injury and illness prevention standard that was initially proposed during the Biden administration. Dee Anna D. Hays and Leah J. Shepherd have the details.

Senator Seeks Elimination of OPT Program. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) has sent a letter to President Trump criticizing the Optional Practical Training (OPT) work-permit program. Senator Scott characterizes the OPT program as a national security risk, claiming that it provides “recipients from Communist China … access to sensitive technological information and intellectual property.” Senator Scott’s letter concludes, “The OPT program should not exist; it is a purely regulatory creation with no statutory basis.”

The OPT program provides one year of post-graduation work authorization to F-1 student visa holders, as well as an additional two years if they graduate with a STEM degree. According to the most recent Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (issued in September 2025), Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to issue a proposal to amend the existing OPT regulations as early as September 2025. While multiple government shutdowns and partial shutdowns have likely contributed to the delayed issuance of this proposal, Senator Scott’s letter is evidence that lawmakers and regulators remain interested in examining the OPT program.

House Lawmakers Continue Examination of AI in the Workplace. On April 15, 2026, the Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Workforce held a hearing titled “Building an AI-Ready America: Understanding AI’s Economic Impact on Workers and Employers.” This was the sixth in a series of hearings that the committee has held on artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace. Matthew P. Gizzo, shareholder in Ogletree Deakins’ New York and Dallas offices and co-chair of the firm’s Technology Practice Group, provided testimony at the hearing. Regarding the benefits that AI provides to both employers and employees, Gizzo wrote:

AI offers employers powerful tools to meet their wage and hour compliance obligations under federal, state, and local laws more accurately, more efficiently, and more consistently than has ever been possible before. Rather than viewing AI primarily through the lens of risk, AI-driven solutions can be maximized to close the compliance gap, particularly for small- and medium-sized businesses, in a manner that benefits employers and employees on a broad scale.

Republican members have not yet released any proposed legislation as a result of these hearings. However, should they choose to introduce legislation governing the use of AI in the workplace, Gizzo asked lawmakers to avoid “prescriptive mandates that would stifle the development and use of beneficial AI applications” and to establish “a uniform federal standard that preempts the growing patchwork of inconsistent state regulations.”

The Slaughter-House Cases. This week in 1873, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in the Slaughter-House Cases. It was the first case in which the Supreme Court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, which had only been ratified in 1868. The Slaughter-House Cases involved a Louisiana law that granted a butchering monopoly to the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company. Louisiana reasoned that centralizing butchering activity in one location would limit pollution in the Mississippi River. The Butchers’ Benevolent Association of New Orleans challenged the law as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause (“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States …”). Justice Samuel Miller rejected the argument, writing that the privileges or immunities clause applied only to federal citizenship, such as the right to peaceably assemble or the right to protection of the federal government while “on the high seas or within the jurisdiction of a foreign government.” The Slaughter-House Cases, and its narrow interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, blunted the impact of the Fourteenth Amendment and allowed post-Civil War state and local civil rights abuses to persist. Although subsequent Supreme Court jurisprudence has relied on other clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect individual rights and freedoms, the Slaughter-House Cases has not been reversed.