Seize and Maintain the Initiative
Fortune favors the bold.
Labor Dept seeks 90% staffing cut from federal contractor watchdog
Why should employees of government contractors get additional protections against discrimination? Aren’t there sufficient protections in place, including litigation and other challenges?
How much does this additional compliance mechanism inflate contractor costs?
‘The Labor Department is planning for major cuts to a watchdog office that ensures federal contractors aren’t discriminating against their employees.
‘The department, in a memo obtained by Federal News Network, is looking to cut staffing for its Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) by 90%.’
EU Lawmakers Push Back on U.S. Criticism of Tech Antitrust Regulation
Regulation is a non-tariff barrier to trade. Discuss.
‘The letter said the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which the Commission used to launch probes into Apple, Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms last year, doesn’t solely target U.S. companies, highlighting that Booking.com—Booking Holding’s European business—and TikTok have also come under scrutiny. Booking.com is based in the Netherlands while TikTok is owned by China’s ByteDance.
‘It also said that several U.S. companies want to gain from the rules being in place and actively campaign for the law’s enforcement against Big Tech companies.’
A Pair of Supreme Court Surprises
Loper comes to the aid of San Francisco who argues that they can’t be held responsible for the general level of pollution in the Pacific Ocean.
‘In better Court news, a 5-4 conservative majority on Tuesday handed San Francisco a victory against an overreaching administrative state (San Francisco v. EPA). What do you know? Liberal governments are benefiting from the demise of Chevron deference to regulatory agencies.
‘The case involves the 1972 Clean Water Act’s requirement that localities and businesses obtain Environmental Protection Agency permits to discharge pollutants into national waterways. EPA sought to hold San Francisco’s wastewater system responsible for discharges that “cause or contribute” to water in the Pacific that violates federal and state standards.
‘This is a murky standard, San Francisco argued. Why should the city be punished for pollution in the Pacific that it can’t directly control? Five Justices agreed with the city, overruling the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had deferred to the EPA under the Chevron doctrine that the Court buried last summer.’
Supreme Court Deals Blow to E.P.A. in Dispute Over Federal Water Rules
The generality of the regulation is the problem here. You could do everything right when it comes to managing your own conduct, but if the water is still polluted, you’d be on the hook, according to the EPA.
‘Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said the E.P.A. was entitled to impose specific requirements to prevent pollution but not to make polluters responsible whenever water quality generally falls below the agency’s standards.
‘“When a permit contains such requirements,” he wrote, “a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards.”’
Trump’s EPA Is Giving Us a Cleaner Environment and Increased Prosperity
If Zeldin does nothing else than stop the California waivers, he will be supremely successful.
‘I have also taken action regarding California’s outsized heavy hand on national vehicle regulations, transmitting the Biden administration’s California waiver rules to Congress — a step that the Biden administration deliberately avoided. This had prevented members of Congress from deciding on the Biden administration’s allowing California to create a separate, stricter regime of regulations that provided a different model for states to follow. Congress can now decide the fate of these waivers through the Congressional Review Act. This move protects consumer choice and vehicle affordability.’
Why We Need Federal “Bureaucrats”
This argument is a false dichotomy.
It excludes some interesting possibilities, not least of which is one that appeals to common sense.
A large and powerful federal government is a channel for the owners of large and powerful corporations to rule society, for example.
‘The alternative to a large and powerful federal government is a society that is ruled by the owners of large and powerful corporations. Think about the power of a company like Amazon. Back in 2022, workers at an Amazon warehouse voted to unionize, and Amazon has refused to bargain for the last three years. Those warehouse workers and others like them need a more robust NLRB, not one that is on life support. Amazon is currently valued at $2.2 trillion. Ronald Reagan once provided a great illustration of how big a trillion dollars is. He said that if you had a 4-inch stack of thousand dollar bills, you would be a millionaire, but to be a trillionaire, you’d need a stack 67 miles high. Amazon can roll over individual workers like a truck driving over an ant. According to Forbes, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has an unfathomable $227 billion, and Musk has even more money. If you’re afraid of too much federal power, you can rest assured that you are a lot safer with three million federal employees each exercising a small amount of power than with a handful of billionaires exercising unchecked power.’