The undersigned organizations (“the Business Community”) offer these comments in response to Office of Management and Budget’s (“OMB”) April 7, 2023, “Request for Comments on Guidance Implementing Section 2(e) of the Executive Order of April 6, 2023.” The Business Community recommends to OMB that it withdraw the draft guidance and recommends to President Biden that he restore the original Executive Order 12866. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ (OIRA) open-door policy granting meetings to any party interested in a regulation under review has reinforced the rigor and leg

High Court Strikes Down EPA's Efforts to Expand Its Authority; ARTBA and NSSGA Partnered During Legal Battle

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) campaign to regulate all U.S. ditches hit another roadblock May 25. The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed with the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) and the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) that the agency exceeded its authority in developing new wetlands regulations.

The Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO or Partnership) and the 104 undersigned organizations again urge the Department of Labor’s (DOL or Department) Wage and Hour Division to abandon or at least postpone issuance of its announced proposed rulemaking altering the overtime regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The Department's Fall 2022 Regulatory Agenda targeted this May for release of a proposed rule.

The undersigned business groups strongly support the introduction of your Main Street Tax Certainty Act of 2023, legislation to make permanent the 20-percent deduction for small- and individually-owned businesses (Section 199A). Your legislation would provide certainty to the millions of S corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorships that rely on the Section 199A deduction to remain competitive both here and overseas. Individually- and family-owned businesses organized as pass-throughs are the backbone of the American economy.

As you draft the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bill we urge you to provide robust funding for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Mining Research Program, whose work is essential to advancing the wellbeing of the men and women of the mining industry. As you know, NIOSH conducts critical applied research, develops criteria for occupational safety and health standards to protect workers, and provides technical services to government, labor, and industry.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is working to implement a speed limiter mandate that would restrict all heavy-duty commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) to a single top speed across the country, as low as 60 miles per hour. This mandate will be bad for road safety, crash rates, driver retention, and supply chain performance. As the Subcommittee on Highways & Transit convenes a hearing this week to examine policies that will help overcome supply chain challenges, we urge you to prevent FMCSA from moving forward with this controversial mandate.

The organizations signed below collectively submit the following comments to the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) “Review of its General Applicability Wavier of Buy America Requirements for Manufactured Products.” We appreciate the opportunity to share our perspective of this review as it relates to our construction materials.

The undersigned associations (collectively, the “Coalition”) offer the following comments in response to the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ’s) Interim National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change (“Interim Guidance”). Our organizations represent a diverse set of economic sectors that form the backbone of the American economy—agriculture, energy, construction, mining, forestry, manufacturing, transportation, and other sectors.

The undersigned organizations support your bill, the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2023. We appreciate your work to lead the country towards a commonsense tax code that does not impose a destructive double or triple tax at death. We support full and permanent repeal of the federal estate tax for the following reasons: Repealing the death tax would spur job creation and grow the economy. Many studies have quantified the potential job growth that would result from estate tax repeal. Last year the Tax Foundation found that the US could create over 150,000 jobs by repealing the estate tax.

We represent construction materials vital to our nation’s infrastructure and are providing comments regarding the proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for Particulate Matter (PM).  Our organizations represent hundreds of thousands of employees across the country and include the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA), National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA), National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA), and the Portland Cement Association (PCA) (associations).