MCAA Government Affairs Update for the Week of October 13, 2025: The Latest Developments Impacting Our Industry

As part of its ongoing commitment to protecting your livelihood and setting the stage for a bright future, MCAA has secured the services of Longbow Public Policy Group to advise our MCAA Government Affairs Committee (GAC). GAC Chair, Jim Gaffney will be passing along information relative to our industry on a regular basis.

On Monday, October 13, 2025 MCAA Lobbying Firm, Longbow Public Policy Group provided the following information:

Trump Administration

• As the week begins, the government shutdown continues as both the House and Senate went home for the Columbus Day holiday weekend. Before the Senate departed last Friday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who is facilitating shutdown negotiations with Democrats, floated a new continuing resolution to fund the government through December 18^th or 19^th instead of the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) that expires November 21^st. Sen. Mullin also hinted that it could be paired with a promise to negotiate with Democrats on expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) credits. The proposal came after the Senate failed for the seventh time last Thursday to overcome a filibuster of the House-passed continuing resolution, while a Democratic proposal to extend ACA premium tax credits also failed. On a House Republican conference call last Thursday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) rejected bringing the House back to Washington, D.C. to vote on a standalone bill to pay the troops before they miss paychecks on October 15^th. Speaker Johnson also continued to insist that the House will not reconvene until the Senate approves the House-passed CR. Despite Speaker Johnson’s remarks, the White House is considering options to pay members of the military if the shutdown drags on, including shifting available funds or pressing Republican leadership to put a standalone troop pay bill on the floor. In addition to the impending deadline to pay the military, other deadlines are approaching that could increase pressure to resolve the government funding impasse, including: October 17^th when federal courts run out of money; October 20^th the pay date for Senate staff; October 24^th the next pay date for federal workers; October 31^st the pay date for House staff; and November 1^st when open enrollment begins for the Affordable Care Act. As the shutdown continues, pressure is also mounting due to significant delays at a growing number of major airports—including Reagan National in D.C., Philadelphia, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty, Nashville, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, and Boston Logan. The delays are due to staffing shortages, as air traffic controllers and TSA screeners call in sick during the shutdown (as they did during the 2019 shutdown). And smaller airports may begin halting commercial air service after funding for the Essential Air Service Program expired on Sunday. Concerned about the growing airport delays caused by staffing shortages, Transportation Secretary Duffy is threatening that “problem children” air traffic controllers who call out sick during the shutdown could lose their jobs. The White House also sought to pressure Democrats to end the shutdown by announcing last Friday that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has initiated reductions in force of furloughed federal employees at unspecified federal agencies.

• Evidence of President Trump’s growing influence over corporate America was illustrated last week in the latest installment of the Global Situation Room’s “Reputation Risk Index”— a quarterly survey of executives tracking evolving reputational threats to companies and organizations. The latest edition reveals that executives surveyed view the greatest risk currently facing organizations as targeted criticism from President Trump. This includes potential backlash not only from the President himself, but also from a wide range of “MAGA influencers,” which surveyed executives say can escalate into criticism from the President and investigations or actions by federal agencies or Congress. Notably, this type of political pressure has now surpassed emerging threats associated with the rise of artificial intelligence systems, ransomware attacks, and hacking incidents as executives’ greatest concern.

• As the MCAA continues lobbying to preserve the Biden-era rules creating a presumption in favor of project labor agreements (PLAs) on construction projects valued at $35 million or more, last week we confirmed that while courts have generally been granting the Administration’s requests to postpone civil cases due to the lapse in appropriations, the Administration’s request for a delay was denied in the pending lawsuit over the MCAA-supported PLA rules brought by Associated Builders and Contractors of Florida that is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. As a result, briefs were due October 10^th in response to the Court’s order questioning its jurisdiction to decide this case. MCAA confirmed that the Trump Administration is continuing to enforce the Biden-era PLA presumption during the pendency of this lawsuit.

• Last Thursday, President Trump signed a memorandum to authorize the construction of up to four Arctic Security Cutters (ASCs) in shipyards located in Finland, subject to an agreement to leverage Finnish expertise to construct up to seven additional ASCs in unspecified shipyards located in the United States.

• MCAA members who are federal contractors should be aware that the Trump Justice Department has started using the False Claims Act (FCA) for immigration enforcement  against government contractors who utilized illegal aliens for work in shipyards billed to the federal government. In recent weeks, Bayonne Drydock and Repair Corp. agreed to pay more than $4 million to settle FCA allegations that its subcontractors employed “unauthorized aliens” who worked on federal ship contracts in violation of the E-Verify provision of the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Separately, Bollinger Shipyard paid more than $1 million to settle claims it had failed to verify the employment eligibility of certain workers on a federal contract. The developments come as the Justice Department has pledged that a “focus” of the Criminal Division’s Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program will include pursuing “violations by corporations of federal immigration law.”

• During Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit with President Trump last Wednesday, Carney proposed reviving the Keystone XL pipeline project in exchange for lowering the 50% tariffs the U.S. has imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products. It is unclear if anything will come of this because the company that was behind the project has said it has “moved on.”

• Last Tuesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its forecast for renewable energy capacity growth in the United States by nearly 50%. The revision is based on the Trump Administration’s early phase-out of federal tax incentives for many renewables in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, its suspension of new offshore wind leasing, new permitting restrictions on wind and solar projects on federal lands, and new import controls. As you know, the MCAA lobbied successfully to prevent similarly drastic cuts to federal tax credits for nuclear, hydrogen, and geothermal in the recently-enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The cuts that did take effect for other types of “clean energy” are disproportionately affecting states like Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas—top wind producing jurisdictions that supported President Trump in the 2024 election.

• MCAA members should be interested in the Supreme Court’s new term that began last week because it could have major implications for President Trump’s tariff policy and other aspects of his agenda. On November 5^th, the Justices will hear arguments appealing a case that declared unlawful President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs imposed in April under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Supreme Court will also consider a case in December about the President’s authority to fire federal officials at independent federal agencies like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

• The government shutdown has already forced the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to delay the September jobs report, and if the impasse continues, next month’s report could be postponed as well. While other key inflation indicators such as the producer price index and import and export prices will remain on hold, on Friday the BLS announced it will publish the September 2025 Consumer Price Index on October 24, 2025 at 8:30am ET. The agency said that this limited release ensures the Social Security Administration can meet statutory deadlines to calculate the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). The CPI report is critical for Social Security because it determines benefit increases for tens of millions of retirees.

Congress

• Last Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee advanced to the full Senate four nominations of interest to the MCAA by a party-line vote of 12-11: (1) Morgan Lewis attorney Crystal Carey to be General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB); (2) former NLRB attorney James Murphy to be a member of the NLRB; (3) Rosario Palmieri to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy; and (4) former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) to serve as the Labor Department’s Inspector General. Notably, the HELP Committee did not consider the nomination of Boeing chief labor counsel Scott Mayer to be a member of the NLRB over concerns expressed by Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) about Boeing’s inability to reach an agreement with the union representing workers on strike at the company’s St. Louis facility.

• Last Wednesday, the MCAA policy team covered the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s hearing entitled, “Labor Law Reform Part 1: Diagnosing the Issues, Exploring Current Proposals.” The hearing largely centered on two labor reform proposals—the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Faster Labor Contracts Act. During the hearing, witnesses supporting the PRO Act, including former National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and UAW union member Steve Cochran, argued that the bill would strengthen workers’ ability to unionize and bargain fairly by giving the NLRB real enforcement power and curbing corporate stalling tactics. Abruzzo and Cochran also noted issues with the current system that allow employers to delay union negotiations for years without consequences. Abruzzo also explained that the NLRB is chronically underfunded and unable to protect workers effectively, while Cochran cited Volkswagen’s prolonged union contract talks as evidence of the need for stronger labor protections, like those in the PRO Act. Notably, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien declined to expressly endorse the PRO Act and instead focused on the more modest Faster Labor Contracts Act introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). O’Brien said that the bill would prevent corporations from dragging out negotiations indefinitely, noting that half of new unions fail to secure contracts within a year. Both O’Brien and Cochran argued that the Faster Labor Contracts Act’s binding timelines for negotiation and arbitration would force companies to bargain in good faith. However, witnesses Rachel Greszler of the conservative Heritage Foundation and former Republican NLRB Chair Marvin Kaplan, warned that the Faster Labor Contracts Act’s “arbitrary deadlines” and reliance on federal mediation could invite government overreach and undermine the voluntary bargaining framework established by the National Labor Relations Act.

• Last Wednesday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released new estimates showing that in fiscal year (FY) 2025, the federal budget deficit grew to $1.8 trillion as interest on the public debt surpassed $1 trillion for the first time ever. President Trump’s tariffs generated $195 billion in customs duties in FY 2025—up from $77 billion the prior year. And for the just-concluded 2025 fiscal year, CBO’s data indicates that the Treasury Department’s corporate tax receipts fell 15%—to $453 billion—as businesses benefited from MCAA-advocated tax provisions included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. These include the corporate and individual tax rates retained from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a permanent extension of the Section 199A 20% pass-through deduction, a permanent extension of the Section 168 100% bonus depreciation for new and used equipment and machinery, and an increase in the limitation amount for the Section 179 immediate expensing of qualified property from $1 million to $2.5 million. Last Thursday, the IRS released Revenue Procedure 2025-32 providing the tax year 2026 annual inflation adjustments for these MCAA-advocated tax provisions and many others that will generally apply to tax returns for 2026 filed in calendar year 2027. 

• Last Tuesday, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced the “Pipeline Integrity, Protection, and Enhancement for Leveraging Investments in the Nation’s Energy to assure Safety (PIPELINE Safety) Act” (S. 2975). The legislation would provide $1.65 billion to reauthorize the Pipeline Safety and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) for five years. The bill also includes provisions revising the pipeline safety technology pilot program created by the 2020 PIPES Act, increasing the maximum civil penalties for violations of federal pipeline safety statutes and regulations, improving whistleblower protections, and requiring PHMSA to conduct a study of the safety, technical, and practical considerations of blending hydrogen into existing natural gas systems. The bill text is available here, and a section-by-section is available here. MCAA’s policy team is evaluating the legislation and is in discussions with Committee staff about it.

• We are pleased to report that last Tuesday, the Senate voted 51-47 to confirm President Trump’s MCAA-endorsed nominee to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Davd Keeling. Keeling was one of over a hundred nominees confirmed in a block by a single vote that was made possible by Senate Republicans invoking the “nuclear option” in early September to change Senate rules to permit confirmation of nominees in blocks rather than individually. Several additional Executive Branch nominees of interest to the MCAA were also confirmed as part of this block, including: (1) Andrew Rogers to lead the Wage and Hour Division that oversees federal prevailing wage; (2) Jonathan Berry to be Solicitor of Labor (DOL’s chief legal officer); (3) Janet Dhillon to lead the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation; (4) Jonathan Snare to be a member of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission; (5) Audrey Robertson to be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; (6) Timothy Walsh to be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management; (7) Catherine Jereza to be Assistant Secretary of Energy for Electricity; (8) Laura Swett and David LaCerte to be members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; (9) Neil Jacobs to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and (10) Kevin Rhodes to be Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy. As these newly confirmed officials take their posts, MCAA will be engaging with them and we expect the pace of regulatory activity at their agencies to pick up.

• Given MCAA’s continuous efforts to strengthen and expand participation in registered apprenticeship programs, we wanted to highlight a report from Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released last Monday on artificial intelligence (AI) that could help encourage people to go into registered apprenticeship programs in the skilled trades as they look to enter careers that won’t be destroyed by the rise of AI-powered robots and systems. The report posits that these robots and systems could result in 100 million people losing their jobs over the next decade, but the skilled trades for which the United Association’s apprenticeship programs train people are not among the occupations expected to be significantly impacted. The report finds that AI could lead to the displacement of: (1) 54% of software developers; (2) 83% of customer service representatives; (3) 47% of operations managers; (4) 47% of heavy and tractor trailer truck drivers; (5) 81% of laborers and freight, stock and material movers; and (6) 62% of retail salespersons.

• There were some notable developments last week in races for the U.S. Senate. Last Thursday, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) made it known that this week she plans to enter the Maine Senate race against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. A new poll released last Thursday found Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in a dead heat in the Texas Republican Senate primary, with 34% backing Paxton, 33% backing Cornyn, and 22% backing Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) who entered the race last Monday. The poll also showed that Paxton fared the worst of the three Republicans against potential Democratic challengers in a general election. Last Monday, former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) announced that he raised more than $14.5 million in the race for his campaign to replace retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), far ahead of Republican candidate Michael Whatley, who raised $6 million. Also on Monday, Democrat Amy McGrath, a retired Marine aviator, announced a Senate bid in Kentucky to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

• There were several developments last week in races for the U.S. House. Last Thursday, it was reported that twenty-seven-year-old New York City Council member Chi Ossé, a close ally of Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, is privately discussing a primary run against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Progressives see an opening to potentially knock off Jeffries, 55, after Mamdani won his congressional district in New York’s mayoral primary. Last Wednesday, Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson (D), one of the “Tennessee Three” lawmakers who were expelled from their seats in 2023 after participating in a gun control protest on the state House floor, announced a Democratic primary bid against Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Last Tuesday, Trump-endorsed Republican Matt Van Epps won the special Republican primary in Tennessee’s 7^th Congressional District to replace former House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-TN). Van Epps will face Democrat Aftyn Behn in the December 2^nd special general election. Last Monday, Maine state auditor Matt Dunlap (D) announced a Democratic primary bid against incumbent Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) in Maine’s 2^nd Congressional District. Last Monday, former Rep. Jesse Jackson (D-IL) announced a bid for his former seat in Illinois’ 2^nd Congressional District despite having served a prison sentence for embezzling $750,000 in campaign funds for personal luxuries. Last Monday, former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin (D) reported raising over $1.2 million in the two months since launching his primary challenge against incumbent Rep. John Larson (D-CT), a senior member of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee. Larson has raised just over $1 million since January.

Around the Country

• Throughout the government shutdown, MCAA has been busy tracking announcements and rumors about the cancellation of federally funded infrastructure and energy projects. Last week, the Trump Administration made it known that it is considering canceling nearly $12 billion in clean energy projects awarded during the Biden Administration. These include all seven regional hydrogen hubs: (1) the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; (2) the California Hydrogen Hub; (3) the Gulf Coast Hydrogen Hub in Texas; (4) the Heartland Hydrogen Hub in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota; (5) the Mid-Atlantic Hydrogen Hub in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey; (6) the Mid-West Hydrogen Hub in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan; and (7) the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub in Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Also at risk are $35 million for California’s Lodi Energy Center Hydrogen Project—a facility intended to serve as Northern California’s only hydrogen fueling site for heavy-duty trucks and machinery—and two direct air capture projects: Occidental Petroleum’s South Texas Hub in Kleberg County, Texas, and Battelle’s Point Cypress Hub in southwest Louisiana. In addition, the Trump Administration is weighing the cancellation of $500 million for General Motors to convert its Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in Michigan to EV production, $335 million for Stellantis to retool the shuttered Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois for mid-size electric trucks, and $250 million for Stellantis to convert its Indiana Transmission Plant in Kokomo to produce EV components.

• MCAA members monitoring the deployment of geothermal may be interested in a legal challenge filed last week to a Biden-era endangered species designation that halted a project in Nevada. Last Tuesday, Reno, NV-based Ormat Technologies sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Interior Department over the placement of the “Dixie Valley toad” on the Endangered Species List during the Biden Administration. The listing of the toad has prevented construction of the company’s planned geothermal plant in Churchill County, NV. In the lawsuit, Ormat argued that FWS violated the law by listing the toad because it was not in danger of extinction at the time of listing. Conservationists have countered that the construction of the geothermal plant will lead to the toad’s extinction.

• MCAA members in North Carolina should be aware that last Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a public hearing on October 22, 2025 regarding its objection to a North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality proposed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the City of Asheboro’s Wastewater Treatment Plant. The Biden-era EPA argued in a Specific Objection Letter earlier this year that the proposed permit “does not include effluent limits stringent enough to meet applicable water quality standards” after a state administrative judge voided the 1,4-dioxane effluent discharge limitation.