RISE and SHINE Act. It is just a discussion draft, so need to get too excited at the prospect of more bi-partisanship (maybe this author is alone in his excitement over that potential), but recently, Chair Patty Murray and...more
DOL’s 2023 Priorities, Per Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Additional personnel topped Labor Secretary Marty Walsh’s wish list for 2023 as he laid out next year’s proposed budget at a hearing in front of the Subcommittee on...more
Uniting for Ukraine. While, currently, there is more than enough political news to support the 24 hours news cycle, the ongoing crises in Ukraine continues to be one of the top beats. The U.S. has been in lockstep with its...more
COVID-19 Relief? It has been a nice respite not touching on COVID-19 recently in this space. But COVID-19 will likely remain an issue employers must front for the foreseeable future. To that end, on April 07, the House of...more
House Passes Bill To Extend Recent Prohibition On Arbitration Of Sexual Harassment. While the 50-50 partisan split in the Senate has caused an uneven legislative road since the onset of the Biden Administration, legislation...more
Biden Administration Pursues Labor Goals From All Angles, Despite Hiccups, With No Sign of Slowing Down. With the PRO Act stalled in the Senate and unlikely to pass in anything close to its existing form, the Biden...more
Senate Passes The “Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021”; Biden Signature Imminent. As Seyfarth noted in this legal update, the central thrust of the measure is to permit persons...more
What SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer’s Retirement Portends For The LE World. The biggest news to come out of Washington D.C. in recent weeks is unquestionably the formal announcement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen...more
A New Year Brings New Hope, And A Little Vaccine Clarity. Below is a brief discussion of where the various vaccine mandates stand in the courts. But this space is intended to provide a broader update on all of the various...more
Build Back…Sometime? Despite Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s repeated assurances that the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) would pass the Senate before the holidays, many Democratic Senators have now conceded that BBBA...more
CMS And Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandates Blocked By Numerous Article III Judges. On Monday, a federal judge in Missouri issued a preliminary injunction declaring the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’)...more
The Two Relevant Policy Matters Are Really Big -- But Head Into The Weekend In A Holding Pattern. Below is a brief dabble into the history of a great American tradition. More importantly, though, the magnitude of the two main...more
11/22/2021
/ Bridges ,
Broadband ,
College Athletes ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Infrastructure ,
Marijuana ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Recreational Use ,
Roads
OSHA: From The Back Page To The Headlines. If asked in January of 2020 what exactly OSHA is and what it does within the Department of Labor, we would venture that the majority of PMN readers would not have a completely...more
President Biden Calls On Congress To Eliminate Subminimum Pay For Disabled Workers. The White House has called on Congress to eliminate a program under Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act that allows employers to...more
Will-They-Won’t-They Saga Continues: As we noted, about two weeks ago, more centrist democrats in the House pushed the speaker into a promise to hold a vote on the bi-partisan infrastructure bill passed by the Senate on...more
10/4/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Broadband ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Infrastructure ,
NLRB ,
OCR ,
Telecommunications
A lot of relevant policy matters have happened over the past two weeks. We have seen significant progress on the dual-track infrastructure plan; this year’s legislative session in California came to a close, bringing heftier...more
House Leadership Holds The Line On Dual-Track Infrastructure Bill(s) Strategy. Earlier this week, media concerns abounded that moderate house democrats might throw an immovable wrench in the serious progress with the...more
One Small Step For Infrastructure: Senate Passes Bipartisan Package, But The Next Leaps Will Be Laborious. Finally, after months of inter- and intra-party wrangling, the Senate voted 69-30 — including a notable aye vote from...more
The Senate, Finally, Takes A Baby Vote On The Bipartisan Infrastructure Proposal. On Wednesday, the Senate voted 67-32 to advance the proposal, with 17 Republicans joining all Democrats to begin legislative action. The vote...more
A Summer of Freedom: Happy 4th From Us Here At The PMN. While the White House has acknowledged that the nation will not meet President Biden’s ambitious July 4th vaccination goal, it would be hard to argue the nation as a...more
President Biden Is Back From Overseas, And His Budget is Out. The White House has released the President’s 2022 budget proposal, which incorporates some of the legislative proposals made by President Biden over the past few...more
A Bipartisan Deal On Infrastructure Remains Out Of Grasp. Last week, the GOP offered a counter proposal to Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, topping out at – so close – almost $1 Trillion. However, the GOP offer only included...more
The Great Loosening: Easing of Coronavirus Restrictions Across The Union. Since Joe Biden’s election, this space has discussed the great expansion of the Paycheck Protection Program, as well as the great undoing of a number...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On May 4, 2021, Seyfarth attorneys convened a webinar entitled “The Biden Administration: Actions on Labor & Employment in the First 100 Days.” A panel composed of Leon Rodriguez, Tracy Billows, Scott...more
Is That Infrastructure? Biden Plans To Retrofit Not Just Roads And Bridges. Astute readers of this newsletter have almost assuredly heard the phrase “that’s infrastructure” mentioned by Biden administration officials as they...more