What’s been designed here is a project that ensures a fossil fuel agenda, both in the literal and figurative sense.
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Department of Labor and Related Agencies
Exemptions from Regulations for Small Business. Burdensome regulations have anti-competitive effects. In general, larger, higher-margin businesses are better able to absorb the costs of regulatory compliance than are small businesses, and under the Biden Administration, big-business lobbies have affirmatively embraced certain regulations (such as the COVID vaccine mandate for private employers) to reduce competition from smaller businesses. Research suggests that labor regulations may pose the highest aggregate regulatory cost for small businesses.
• The labor agencies should exercise their available discretion and duties under the Regulatory Flexibility Act” to exempt small entities from regulations where possible.
• Congress should enact legislation increasing the revenue thresholds at which the National Labor Relations Board asserts jurisdiction over employers to match changes in inflation that have occurred since 1935 and better reflect the definition of “small business” used by the federal government.
• Congress (and DOL, in its enforcement discretion) should exempt small business, first-time, non-willful violators from fines issued by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
EDUCATION AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING
Apprenticeships. The next Administration should return to prior policy and implement an industry-recognized apprenticeship program separate from the Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) and explore how best to modernize, streamline, and eliminate duplication in the RAP. For roughly 80 years, the RAP— which requires conforming to government standards and includes federal funding, tax credits, and other federal resources—has dominated apprenticeship programs in the U.S. Organizations across the political spectrum have noted that the overly burdensome requirements of RAPs have contributed to limiting them to legacy trades, failing to meet growing industry demands such as in health care and technology. A 2017 study estimated that the number of occupations commonly filled through apprenticeships could nearly triple (from 27 to 74), that the number of job openings filled through apprenticeships could expand eightfold (to 3.2 million), and that the occupations ripe for apprenticeship expansion could offer 20 percent higher wages than traditional apprenticeship occupations.
The Trump Administration expanded apprenticeship options through the creation of the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP), and more than 130 IRAPs were created. The Biden Administration rescinded the IRAP regulations.