The Congressional Review Act of 1996 may be an effective tool for rolling back recent federal regulations implementing President Obama’s policy initiatives. But it is limited. It applies only to very recent rules. It requires action by both houses of Congress and the President’s signature. It is strongly limited by political factors. In the 21 years since it was adopted, it has been used only once.

Congress is seeking stronger weapons. H.R. 5, the “Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017,” represents a substantial rewrite of the existing Administrative Procedure Act. H.R. 5 includes provisions that would allow courts to review agency rules on a “de novo” basis, without any deference to the agency’s interpretation of Constitutional or statutory requirements and other regulations.

H.R. 26, “Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2017,” introduces a new mechanism for Congressional review of a broad category of Federal agency regulatory actions defined as “major rules.” Basically, the mechanism in H.R. 26 is designed to prevent a broad class of actions by Executive Branch agencies and independent regulatory agencies from becoming effective without a Joint Resolution of approval passed by Congress and signed by the President within a narrowly prescribed period (70 legislative days).

Even if these bills get through Congress and are signed by President Trump, they will likely face challenges in the Supreme Court. H.R. 26 in particular faces an uphill climb. For the reasons discussed in this article, the Joint Resolution mechanism in H.R. 26 suffers from the same Constitutional infirmities as the “one-House veto” that was popular in the 1970s but declared unconstitutional in INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).
Continue Reading Why Congress can’t have the one-House veto in H.R. 26

According to Shakespeare, “What’s done cannot be undone.” This may not be true with respect to many of the regulations implementing President Obama’s Executive Orders.

Let’s look at the fate of the rules implementing Executive Order 13673 (July 2014), formally called “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces.” The DOL guidance and the FAR provisions implementing this Order were commonly referred to as “the blacklisting rules.”

The final blacklisting rules were published on August 25, 2016. Industry moved quickly to challenge them. An October 24, 2016 preliminary injunction issued by United States District Judge Marcia Crone stopped most of them from going into effect. Judge Crone’s order cites two constitutional problems with the blacklisting rules. First, they likely violate contractors’ due process rights because they require contractors to report mere allegations of labor law violations without the benefit of judicial or quasi-judicial safeguards to contest them. Second, they likely violate contractors’ First Amendment rights because they require contractors to “to report that they have violated one or more labor laws and to identify publicly the ‘labor law violated’ along with the case number and agency that has allegedly so found” even when there had been no adjudication.
Continue Reading The fate of “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” under President Trump

Earlier this year we wrote about the final regulation consolidating most of the Federal Small Business Mentor-Protégé program under one office at the Small Business Administration. See 81 Fed. Reg. 48558 (July 25, 2016). The regulation expands the popular Mentor-Protégé program and should provide significant benefits to many more large and small companies. You can read our original post here.

One of the questions raised in comments on the draft regulation was how the SBA would cope with the expected significant increase in its workload. Accuracy and turn-around time are important elements of the SBA’s review role. In the final regulation, SBA generally addressed those concerns by promising to find new and improved ways to deliver the service. They committed to take one step at a time and scale up as needed.

It has now been five months since the final rule was published. We asked SBA Mentor-Protégé Director Holly Schick for a progress report on the transition. Director Schick says that the SBA has moved steadily if incrementally, to ramp-up the program.Continue Reading Progress Report: SBA Mentor-Protégé Program rolls out and moves forward

The FAR Council and the Department of Labor have published the final versions of their respective final rule and DOL guidance implementing the President’s July 2014 Executive Order entitled “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces”—EO 13673.

Detractors frequently refer to EO 13673 as the “Blacklisting” or “Bad Actors” Executive Order. The order and the new regulations purport to promote efficiency in government procurement by ensuring that federal agencies contract only with “responsible” contractors that comply with federal and state workplace protection laws.

This objective is already a well-established requirement of the government’s procurement rules. The regulations impose additional administrative burdens on current and future contractors, adding an element of uncertainty to future contract award decisions, but only achieving marginal improvements in workplace law compliance.
Continue Reading Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces—the final rules implementing Executive Order 13673

Under a final rule published on July 25, 2016, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Mentor-Protégé Program is now open to all small businesses. See 81 Fed. Reg. 48558 (July 25, 2016). This significant expansion can be expected to provide real benefits to small businesses, large businesses, and government agencies. The revamped program will no doubt increase the popularity of mentor-protégé agreements among companies seeking federal contracts for goods, services, and construction. With more small-business ventures available to compete, it may also increase the number of contract opportunities actually set aside for small business.

Origin of SBA’s 8(a) Mentor-Protégé Program

The Mentor-Protégé Program was authorized by Congress in 1991 as a pilot program to help certain small businesses compete for Defense Department contracts. By 1998, the SBA was administering a program to help socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses. These businesses were called “8(a) companies” because the program was authorized by section 8(a) of the Small Business Act. Qualified companies acting as mentors provided technical, managerial, and financial assistance to help 8(a) companies compete for federal contracts.

By 2011, roughly 1,000 participating mentor-protégé joint ventures held federal contracts, with about half of those monitored by the SBA. Twelve other participating agencies oversee and administer the other half of existing mentor-protégé participants. Each agency has its own rules and monitoring program.
Continue Reading SBA’s new-and-improved Mentor-Protégé Program

A new Final Rule addressing sex discrimination in employment by federal contractors and subcontractors will go into effect on August 15, 2016. The new Final Rule was published by DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. It implements Executive Order 11246, which has been essentially unchanged since it was first issued in 1970. OFCCP’s new rules and guidelines include several significant changes from the 1970 version, but the changes are primarily intended to update DOL requirements so that they conform to well-established federal caselaw and other more recently enacted federal requirements.

Who is affected?

OFCCP’s new Final Rule on sex discrimination applies to any business or organization that (1) holds a single Federal contract, subcontract, or federally assisted construction contract in excess of $10,000; (2) has Federal contracts or subcontracts that, combined, total in excess of $10,000 in any 12-month period; or (3) holds Government bills of lading, serves as a depository of Federal funds, or is an issuing and paying agency for U.S. savings bonds and notes in any amount.

What does the Final Rule address?

As they have for many years, DOL’s regulations require contractors to ensure nondiscrimination in employment on the basis of sex and to take affirmative action to ensure that they treat applicants and employees without regard to their sex. The new Final Rule is much more specific.Continue Reading Contractor guide to compliance with OFCCP’s new final rule on sex discrimination

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, No. 15-7 (U.S. June 16, 2016), upholds the viability of the implied certification theory of False Claims Act liability. But it also makes cases arising from minor instances of noncompliance much harder to prove. The Court held that a knowing failure to disclose a violation of a material statutory, regulatory, or contractual requirement can create False Claims Act liability. The requirement need not be an express condition of payment, but it must be material to the Government’s decision to pay.

The requirement for proof of a misleading half-truth

Those hoping that the Court would eliminate implied certification altogether will be disappointed with the decision. It opens up the possibility of new False Claims Act cases in the Seventh Circuit and in other jurisdictions that had rejected the implied certification theory or limited its application to conditions of payment. Some cases that might have been thrown out on a motion to dismiss might stand a better chance of surviving through discovery and trial.

The Court nevertheless takes strong steps to limit misuse of the implied certification theory. According to the opinion in Escobar, liability under the implied certification theory can be imposed only when two conditions are satisfied. First, the claim for payment must make “specific representations about the goods or services provided.” An invoice that makes no affirmative statement about the quality of a contractor’s goods or services cannot be the basis for an implied certification.Continue Reading Universal Health v. Escobar: the new standard of proof for implied certification liability under the False Claims Act

The Department of Labor has issued its final rule amending the overtime and exemption regulations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Although the final rule differs in some ways from the July 2015 proposed rule, it will have significant administrative and budgetary impacts on most employers. The new rule becomes effective December 1, 2016, and will update automatically every three years thereafter.
Continue Reading DOL’s new salary level tests for overtime pay

[UPDATE: The Supreme Court resolved the Escobar case in a unanimous decision published on June 16, 2015. A link to our discussion of the Court’s opinion is available here.]

In some courts in the United States today, a government contractor or a healthcare provider seeking reimbursement from a federal program can violate the False Claims Act even when its work is satisfactory and its invoices are correct. Under the theory of “implied certification,” a minor instance of non-compliance with one of the thousands of applicable statutes, regulations, and contract provisions can be the basis for a federal investigation, years of litigation, as well as fines, penalties, suspension and debarment, even imprisonment of company personnel.

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, Docket No. 15-7, a case involving the viability of the implied certification theory. Here, we look at the questions posed during oral argument to see if we can infer how the Court might resolve the case.

The Supreme Court agreed to consider two questions posed in Escobar. First, the Court agreed to address the current split in the circuits as to the viability of the implied certification theory. The First Circuit’s decision in United States ex rel. Escobar v. Universal Health Services, Inc., 780 F.3d 504 (1st Cir. 2015), broadly adopts implied certification. The Seventh Circuit’s decision in United States v. Sanford-Brown, Ltd., 788 F.3d 696 (7th Cir. 2015), firmly rejects it.Continue Reading How the Supreme Court will limit False Claims Act liability for implied certification

We have previously written about the Department of Labor’s effort to expand the scope of its regulatory and enforcement jurisdiction over government contractors against the wishes of Congress and even fellow federal agencies. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down an attempt by the DOL to significantly expand the Davis-Bacon Act to apply to the construction of a Public-Private Partnership project. The Davis-Bacon Act requires that contractors on federal and DC government construction projects pay prevailing wages and fringe benefits to the workers on such projects. DOL sought to apply the Act to CityCenterDC, which is a mixed-use development on the site of the DC Convention Center. This project includes 60 retail stores, various private offices, approximately 700 residential units, and a 370-room luxury hotel. 
Continue Reading DC Circuit rules that the Davis-Bacon Act does not apply to Public-Private Partnership project