Congress: Big Picture Legislative Update. The 119th Congress is revving up, and the Buzz is monitoring two major legislative issues:

• Government funding expires on March 14, 2025—one month from today. Clearly, there is plenty of political acrimony between the parties, along with consternation among Democrats concerning how the administration has operated during its first several weeks. There are no clear signs yet about whether we are heading for a government shutdown, and anything can happen, as we saw during the final week of 2024.
• This week, the U.S. Congress officially started the budget reconciliation process that it will use to pass Republican legislative priorities, such as tax cuts, border security, defense spending, and energy promotion. As the Buzz has previously discussed, this complicated process will allow the Republicans to avoid the legislative filibuster in the U.S. Senate and pass legislation on a party-line basis. The process is likely to take up much of Congress’s time in the coming weeks and months.

AG Issues Memos on Private-Sector DEI. On February 5, 2025, Pam Bondi, the newly confirmed attorney general, issued two memoranda to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) employees instructing them on steps that they must take to implement Executive Order (EO) 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The memos are as follows:

• “Ending Illegal DEI and DEIA Discrimination and Preferences.” This memo instructs the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and Office of Legal Policy to jointly draft and submit a report containing recommendations “to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including policies relating to [diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and [diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility (DEIA)].”

  This report must contain “specific steps or measures to deter the use of DEI and DEIA programs or principles that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences, including proposals for criminal investigations and for up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of [private-sector] entities.” (Emphasis added.) This likely refers to provisions of EO 14173 that invoke the False Claims Act, which allows for criminal penalties, treble damages, attorneys’ fees, and private citizen “whistleblower” actions. Lauren B. Hicks, T. Scott Kelly, and Zachary V. Zagger provide an analysis of the implications of EO 14173 for organizations doing business with the federal government that will be subject to potential liability under the False Claims Act.

• “Eliminating Internal Discriminatory Practices.” This memo primarily instructs DOJ officials to terminate internal discriminatory programs and policies relating to DEI and DEIA. This includes the elimination of positions, programs, grants, contracts with vendors, etc., relating to DEI. It also directs DOJ officials to make recommendations on how to align the agency’s enforcement activities, litigation positions, consent decrees, regulations, and policies with the EO.

  The memo further instructs DOJ officials to develop new guidance that “narrow[s] the use of ‘disparate impact’ theories” and emphasizes that “statistical disparities alone do not automatically constitute unlawful discrimination.”

DOL Nominees Announced. The Senate has already confirmed sixteen of President Trump’s agency nominees, but the employment-related agencies (i.e., the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)) are a bit behind. There was some news this week, however, relating to DOL nominees:

• Secretary of Labor Hearing. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions was scheduled to hold a hearing this week on the nomination of former U.S. Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon to be secretary of labor. But due to a snowstorm in the Washington, D.C., area, the hearing has been rescheduled for February 19, 2025.
• DOL Subagency Nominees. Potentially filling in the leadership positions of the DOL’s subagencies, are the following nominees who were announced this week:
• David Keeling has been nominated to be the assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. Keeling has held several positions overseeing private-sector employers’ workplace safety programs.
  • Wayne Palmer has been nominated to be the assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health. Palmer held the same position during the first Trump administration.
  • Daniel Aronowitz, an insurance industry executive, has been nominated to lead the Employee Benefits Security Administration.
  • Henry Mack III has been nominated to lead the Employment and Training Administration. Mack previously served in the Florida Department of Education.

CFPB Halts Activity. Activity at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was effectively stopped this week while the Department of Government Efficiency reviews the agency’s internal operations. The CFPB, which “enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are transparent, fair, and competitive” stretched its reach over the last several years as part of former President Joe Biden’s “whole of government” approach to promoting unionization. For example, in 2023, the CFPB entered into an information sharing agreement with the NLRB “to address practices that harm workers in the ‘gig economy’ and other labor markets.” Pursuant to that agreement, the CFPB also focused on “employer-driven debt” that allegedly results from employee expenses related to “employer-mandated training or equipment.” Created by Congress in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, CFPB has long been criticized by Republicans.

H-1B Registration Period Announced. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced that the fiscal year 2026 H-1B cap registration period will open at noon ET on Friday, March 7, 2025, and close at noon ET on Monday, March 24, 2025. Nicole Fink and Philip K. Sholts have the details on the increased fees, the second go-round of the beneficiary-centric selection process, and other need-to-know aspects of the process.

Remembering Justice Scalia. Supreme Court of the United States Justice Antonin Scalia passed away this week in 2016 at the age of seventy-nine. While an incredible amount has been written about Justice Scalia and his legal philosophy, at the Buzz, we remember his jurisprudence related to labor and employment law. For example, Justice Scalia took part in decisions holding that union “salts” were employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and that the NLRB was precluded by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 from awarding backpay to undocumented workers—even if their employment termination was otherwise unlawful under the NLRA. With the opportunity to write for the Court, Justice Scalia authored opinions emphasizing the need for sufficient commonality between potential members of a class action, particularly in employment law cases, as well as an opinion holding that the Federal Arbitration Act preempted state laws prohibiting class action waivers in arbitration. Finally, in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., Justice Scalia wrote that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition of discrimination “because of … sex” applied to same-sex sexual harassment claims.