On May 22, ABC joined a coalition of business groups in filing a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division, challenging the U.S. Department of Labor’s controversial final rule, Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales, and Computer Employees, which will change overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Read ABC’s news release announcing the lawsuit.

On May 17, ABC joined an industry coalition in submitting comments to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget in response to the OMB’s request for information on public participation in federal agency policymaking. The OMB issued the request ahead of plans to develop a governmentwide framework, common guidelines and leading practices for public participation and community engagement.

On May 21, 20 states led by Iowa and North Dakota joined in a lawsuit against the Council on Environmental Quality, seeking to overturn the ABC-opposed National Environmental Policy Act Phase 2 revisions. The complaint asserts that the CEQ’s new regulations impose unnecessarily burdensome and unworkable new rules that will delay critical projects across the country.

On April 4, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a proposed rule on Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act Reporting Requirements. The rule, in alignment with the CIRCIA Act (signed into law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022), imposes new cyber incident and ransom payment reporting requirements for companies deemed to have responsibility for critical infrastructure.

ABC’s Massachusetts chapter and a coalition of merit shop contractors successfully blocked the Springfield Water and Sewer Commission’s plan for a project labor agreement mandate on a $325 million water filtration plant.

On May 21, ABC joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business groups in filing a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division against the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Worker Walkaround Representative Designation Process final rule. Read the news release announcing the lawsuit.

On May 14, ABC joined a broad group of trade associations in filing an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief against the Federal Trade Commission’s final rule to ban noncompete clauses. Injunctive relief is appropriate and necessary to avoid the immediate and irreparable harm the FTC’s final rule would impose on the hundreds of thousands of American businesses—like construction companies—that appropriately rely on narrowly tailored noncompetes.

On May 13, ABC sent a letter to Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee, urging the committee to oppose the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authorization of new California regulations on locomotive emissions.

ABC, as a member of the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity, called upon the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to extend the implementation date of the first increase to the minimum salary threshold under its new final rule altering the overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

On April 23, the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to issue its final rule to ban noncompete clauses. The rule is effective Sept. 4, 2024.