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MCAA Government Affairs Update for the Week of October 6, 2025: The Latest Developments Impacting Our Industry

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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 6, 2025 MCAA Lobbying Firm, Longbow Public Policy Group provided the following information:

Trump Administration

  • MCAA has been busy monitoring the federal government shutdown and its implications for MCAA members. Right now, it looks like the shutdown could last a while. Last Friday, for the fourth time, Senate Democrats blocked a seven-week continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the government, ensuring that the government shutdown will continue into this week. Senate Democratic leaders pledged to continue to vote against the House-passed seven-week CR until Republicans addressed expiring health care benefits, including Affordable Care Act premium subsidies set to expire at the end of this year, and there seems to be no critical mass of Republicans willing to accept such a deal in the near term. Throughout last week, the White House blamed the shutdown on Democrats and White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought directed all federal agency heads to undertake an orderly shutdown of the federal government, observing “the duration of the shutdown is difficult to predict.”
  • MCAA members who are certified as women- or minority-owned disadvantaged business enterprises should take notice that the Administration’s freeze on the $18 billion of infrastructure funds for New York and the $2 billion frozen in Chicago were predicated on an interim final rule (IFR) effective October 3rd that the U.S. Department of Transportation published last Friday halting the government’s largest contractor set-aside program, the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program. This is the federally-mandated, state administered program under which minority- and women-owned contractors get preferences on contracts issued by myriad state and local transportation agencies, such as airport authorities, state departments of transportation, and public transit agencies that receive federal funds covered by DBE Program requirements. Among the federal funding streams covered by the DBE program regulations revised by this IFR are airport, highway, and transit funds authorized by: (1) 49 U.S.C. 47101, et seq; (2) Titles I, III, V and VI of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991; (3) Title 49, U.S.C., or Titles I, III, and V of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century; (4) Titles I, III, and V of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users; (5) Divisions A and B of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act; (6) Titles I, II, III, and VI of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act; and (7) Divisions A and C of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
     
    This IFR removes the race- and sex-based presumption of disadvantage that has historically been the basis for states certifying businesses as DBEs eligible for the set-aside program. It implements the Trump Administration’s interpretation of federal civil rights law in support of a proposed consent order in Mid-America Milling LLC v. United States Department of Transportation responding to a preliminary injunction issued on September 23, 2024 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky holding that the DBE program’s race- and sex-based presumptions likely do not comply with the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. In the preamble to the IFR, DOT says the rule seeks to ensure that “existing DBEs do not continue to receive any benefits as a result of their certification under the old standards.” 
     
    While the revised regulations maintain the structure of the existing DBE program, they rewrite the substantive standards states must follow for certifying DBEs to make them race- and sex-neutral. The IFR does this by eliminating the language in 49 CFR 26.67(a) that permitted state certifying authorities called “Unified Certification Programs” (“UCPs”) to “presumptively” classify businesses as “disadvantaged” if they were majority owned and controlled by: (1) Black Americans; (2) Hispanic Americans; (3) Native Americans; (4) Asian-Pacific Americans; (5) Subcontinent Asian Americans; (6) women; and (7) any additional groups whose members are designated as socially and economically disadvantaged by the Small Business Administration.
     
    Under the IFR, state Unified Certification Programs (UCPs) that oversee certification of DBEs and publish lists of certified DBEs are directed to review the certification of all DBEs to determine if they still qualify as DBEs under the new requirements, or whether they should be decertified. Recipients of federal funds covered by the DBE program are instructed to pause implementation of goals under the current program, to set 0% DBE goals on all contracts, and to not enforce goals in existing contracts while the review process is undertaken by UCPs. DOT says goals cannot be set until DBEs are certified by the relevant UCP in compliance with the new requirements.
  • As MCAA has been meeting with federal officials about the shutdown and possible impacts on our members, we have become aware of some resources that you may find useful. In particular, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a document on “Frequently Asked Questions During a Lapse in Appropriations” for federal agencies that addresses the general principles that govern agency operations during a government shutdown. MCAA members who are federal contractors may find useful Section II of the OMB document discussing the impact of a shutdown on federal government contracts and grants. Section II.B deals specifically with the shutdown’s impact on “previously awarded” contracts and grants and Section II.C addresses federal agency payments to contractors and grantees in relation to prior awards. Relatedly, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) posted a slide deck on the economic consequences of a government shutdown, noting that the federal government awards approximately $15 billion in federal contracts to businesses each week, and a shutdown means “[t]hese companies would lose funds due to lack of available contract work, not be reimbursed for completed projects, and have to lay off workers.” 
  • The MCAA government affairs team devoted considerable time last week to digesting and disseminating to MCAA leadership the shutdown contingency plans of federal cabinet departments and agencies. The Labor Department’s shutdown plan for the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has only ten of the agency’s 1,270 employees working, and seven of these ten employees will monitor complaints and respond to emergencies. WHD will not process prevailing wage determinations during the shutdown. At the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), only 460 of the agency’s 1,664 staff will work during a shutdown, with 280 of these employees dedicated to functions “necessary to protect life and property.” An additional 170 employees will continue to review whistleblower complaints. The DOL shutdown plan also ceases operations at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Veterans Employment and Training Service, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, Women’s Bureau, and Office of Administrative Law Judges. The closure of BLS means that last Friday’s jobs report for September was delayed until the government reopens, however, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said former BLS staff have told her that the jobs report is ready to be released, and she is pressing the Trump Administration to publish it. The National Labor Relations Board’s shutdown contingency plan says that only two of the agency’s 1,195 employees will be available to perform “activities expressly authorized by law” and explains that the agency will not conduct activities related to union elections, unfair labor practices, resolution of workplace disputes or disputes between an employer/employee and a union, or litigation outside of matters necessary to protect legal actions already taken. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) shutdown contingency plan furloughs 90% of EPA employees and the agency would largely cease civil enforcement inspections, issuing permits or regulations, issuing grants, or approving pending state requests. A small number of EPA staff would remain on hand to perform emergency and disaster assistance, law enforcement work, criminal investigations, and some types of litigation and legal counseling. In stark contrast to the sweeping furloughs at DOL, the NLRB and the EPA, the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Committee announced that it will continue all of its work and operations to speed permitting of the largest and most complex projects throughout the shutdown by using funds in the Environmental Review Improvement Fund created by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
  • We also wanted to ensure MCAA members are aware of the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration’s (ETA) shutdown guidance impacting registered apprenticeship program sponsors and DOL grantees as detailed in Training and Employment Notice (TEN) 02-25, “Impact of a Temporary Suspension of Federal Government Services on Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration Funded Programs and Activities.” TEN 02-25 explains the impact of the shutdown on registered apprenticeship programs and DOL’s job training grants and activities. It says that for most ETA programs, staff will not be available to answer questions, provide technical assistance, or resolve any technical issues with performance data or financial report submissions. Regarding registered apprenticeship, the notice says that during the shutdown program, sponsors in the 27 states in which ETA’s Office of Apprenticeship is the Registration Agency will experience delays in registering new programs, new apprentices, and verification of their status as registered apprenticeship programs. The notice explains that such delays may impact the ability of some employers to hire new apprentices and/or bid on new projects that require proof of registered apprenticeship program status. Additionally, daily Departmental functions associated with ETA grants will cease.
  • Amidst the shutdown, MCAA’s ongoing advocacy on permitting reform continued to make progress last week with the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) releasing updated guidance for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) aimed at expediting the permitting process, ensuring NEPA timelines are met, and allowing federal agencies to revise or establish their NEPA procedures more efficiently. The new guidance aligns with President Trump’s Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” recent amendments to NEPA in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act provisions MCAA supported to streamline environmental reviews, as well as the Supreme Court’s May 29, 2025 decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. Specifically, the guidance clarifies that agencies can issue their NEPA procedures as non-regulatory documents, like guidance or a handbook, and bypass the traditional notice-and-comment rulemaking process. This flexibility is intended to speed up efforts to streamline permitting processes and help agencies implement improvements based on practical experience, without the need for lengthy, formal notice and comment rulemaking. The guidance is accompanied by a template that federal agencies are encouraged to follow for implementing NEPA procedures, which includes information on determining when NEPA applies, the appropriate level of NEPA review required, conducting environmental reviews, and the use of categorical exclusions.
  • As part of the MCAA’s ongoing regulatory efforts on implementation of the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act), we wanted to be sure MCAA members were aware that last Friday the EPA published a long-awaited proposed rule amending their regulations implementing the AIM Act’s Technology Transitions Program for the phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The proposed rule implicates changes to previously announced phasedown regulations for, among other things: (1) industrial process refrigeration (IPR) chillers and IPR equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing; (2) residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump systems; (3) retail food and cold storage warehouse refrigeration; and (4) refrigeration for laboratories and centrifuges. A fact sheet on the proposed rule is available here. Comments are due by November 17, 2025 and should be submitted through the federal eRulemaking portal using Docket ID EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0005. The EPA is also providing an opportunity for the public to request a hearing by October 8, 2025 by email to a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov including “Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0005” in the subject line. If the EPA receives a hearing request, the hearing will be held virtually on October 20, 2025. Those interested in attending the hearing must register in advance on the EPA website when registration becomes available. Requests to speak at the hearing must be submitted by email to silver.joshua@epa.gov in advance of the hearing.
  • Pursuant to President Trump’s April 23, 2025 Executive Order (EO) “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last Wednesday confirmed that it directed all area, local, and district office directors to discharge any complaints based on “disparate impact liability.” Disparate impact liability is a legal concept that argues that even if a policy looks fair on the surface, it can still be discriminatory if it creates unnecessary barriers that make it harder for certain groups of people to succeed. In changing the policy, the EEOC cited language in the April EO arguing that disparate impact theory has become a “key tool” of a “pernicious movement” that threatens meritocracy in favor of “racial balancing” in the workforce and instructs EEOC staff to compile a list of pending disparate impact cases and then close them.
  • While economic data from the federal government is not expected to publish during the shutdown, we got a snapshot of the economy last Wednesday with the release of the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Purchasing Managers’ Index showing that U.S. factory activity contracted for the seventh consecutive month. While production moderately improved, declines in new orders and inventories offset any gain, leading to negligible overall improvement. Notably for MCAA members, “Petroleum and Coal Products” was the only one of the six largest manufacturing industries that expanded in September.

Congress

  • Last week, a bipartisan group of Senate centrists worked to reach a deal to reopen the government with some moderate Democrats indicating that they would support a funding measure to reopen the government if they were given strong assurances from Leader Thune that he will move a bill later this month to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance premium subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. As Democrats continued to discuss their shutdown strategy, House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richie Neal (D-MA) last Tuesday cracked open the door to negotiating income limits for recipients of the ACA subsidies. Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) floated a one-year extension of the subsidies, followed by a one-year phasedown to return the health insurance tax credits to pre-pandemic levels. These discussions continued as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) warned that the shutdown could “provide an opportunity” to further “downsize” the federal government. As last week ended, President Trump was discussing potential downsizing at federal agencies with OMB Director Vought, but no specific announcements were made about the threatened reductions in force.
  • We are pleased to report that last Friday President Trump’s MCAA-endorsed nominee to lead OSHA, David Keeling, advanced to a final vote in the Senate by a party-line vote of 51-46. A final confirmation vote is expected to be held this week. The vote also advanced additional Executive Branch nominees important to MCAA, including: (1) Andrew Rogers to lead the Wage and Hour Division that oversees federal prevailing wage; (2) Jonathan Berry to be Solicitor of Labor (the 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; (10) Kevin Rhodes to be Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy; and (11) Brittany Panuccio to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The advancement of these nominees came after the White House formally withdrew some nominations from Senate consideration last Tuesday, including the nomination of Erwin “EJ” Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was withdrawn following bipartisan concern that he was unfit for the job following reports earlier this month that he was behind a social media account that posted derogatory remarks about gay people, attacked former Vice President Kamala Harris, and featured extreme conspiracy theories.
  • We learned early last week that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee intends to hold two hearings in October on labor reform, one of which has been publicly noticed. The first hearing is scheduled for October 8, 2025 at 10am ET, entitled, “Labor Law Reform Part 1: Diagnosing the Issues, Exploring Current Proposals.” No witnesses are available yet for the hearing, and the HELP Committee has not announced the date for the second hearing in this series. The October 8 hearing is the day before the HELP Committee plans to hold a markup on October 9, 2025 to advance President Trump’s NLRB nominees: (1) Morgan Lewis attorney Crystal Carey to be NLRB General Counsel; (2) Boeing Chief Labor Counsel Scott Mayer to be a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB); and (3) former NLRB attorney James Murphy to be a member of the NLRB. The hearing will also consider the nominations of Rosario Palmieri to be Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy and former Congressman Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) to be the Inspector General of Labor Department.
  • MCAA members who are federal contractors should be aware that House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) on September 26th introduced the Expanding Whistleblower Protections for Contractors Act. The legislation is intended to improve whistleblower protections against retaliation, and ensure that non-disclosure agreements or conditions of employment do not waive a contractor’s whistleblower rights. The bill would also clarify that Executive Branch officials do not have the authority to request that a contractor engage in a reprisal. Text of the bill is available here.

Around the Country

  • Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) continued prioritizing the build out the infrastructure needed to power data centers by issuing Requests for Proposal last Wednesday for U.S. private sector partners to build and power artificial intelligence (AI) data centers at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. For Savannah River, proposals—which are due December 5, 2025—must include long-term leasing plans, and companies will be responsible for building, operating, decommissioning the infrastructure, and securing utility interconnection agreements. A virtual industry day will be held at a date to be determined and those interested in attending should email NNSA_AI_Infrastructure@srs.gov. For Oak Ridge, proposals—which are due December 1, 2025—must similarly cover construction, operation, decommissioning, and utility interconnection for new power generation and storage. An in-person industry day with a site tour is scheduled for October 15, 2025 and registration is required by emailing Steve Cooke at steve.cooke@orem.doe.gov. The announcement comes as PJM Interconnection LLC issued a report this week showing that data-center demand added $7.3 billion in power-supply costs on its grid, which stretches from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic, accounting for 45% of total power-supply costs.
  • Last Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy selected Oklo, Inc., Terrestrial Energy, Inc., TRISO-X LLC, and Valar Atomics, Inc. for its new Fuel Line Pilot Program, under which the Department authorizes fast-tracked commercial licensing to support the construction and operation of advanced nuclear fuel facilities. Under the program: (1) Oklo Inc. of Santa Clara, California will build and operate three fuel fabrication facilities to support their Aurora and Pluto reactors; (2) Terrestrial Energy, Inc. of Charlotte, North Carolina will develop the Terrestrial Energy Fuel Line Assembly to demonstrate a fuel salt fabrication process in a phased approach; (3) TRISO-X Inc. of Oak Ridge, Tennessee will build and operate an additional fuel fabrication laboratory facility to enable pilot-scale integration, training, and system validation to support the TX-1 commercial TRISO fuel fabrication facility; and (4) Valar Atomics Inc of Hawthorne, California will support TRISO fuel fabrication for the Ward 250 reactor deployment and potentially other high-temperature gas reactors. Relatedly, last Tuesday, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded a contract to BWXT Ordnance Tennessee for the licensing, design, and operation of High Purity Depleted Uranium (HPDU) at the contractor’s Y-12 National Security Complex site in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Under the contract, NNSA will provide the HPDU to the contractor for production use.
  • As the MCAA continues to engage on permitting reform and other policies that promote the buildout of domestic semiconductor manufacturing facilities pursuant to the CHIPS and Science Act, details are emerging of how the Commerce Department has thrown the $7.4 billion National Semiconductor Technology Center (NTSC) initiative created to implement the CHIPS and Science Act into disarray by canceling its contract with Natcast, the nonprofit created to operate the public-private partnership central to CHIPS Act implementation and related workforce development. This abrupt cancellation has left dozens of planned projects—across states like Arizona, New York, and California—in limbo, with Natcast forced to lay off over 90% of its 110 staff. Backed by tech giants like Intel, Apple, and Samsung, Natcast was supposed to be the central hub for U.S. chip R&D, workforce development, and prototyping. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, denounced Natcast as a “slush fund” for Biden allies, citing a new Trump Justice Department opinion that its formation violated federal law. Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s vision for federal R&D investments is to secure stronger returns, such as equity stakes, royalties, and intellectual property rights, marking a stark departure from the nonprofit model pursued by Natcast. This comes as the Commerce Department moves forward with a new process to redirect billions in CHIPS Act funding to deals with chipmakers and researchers in emerging fields like artificial intelligence, biotech, and quantum computing.
  • In a notable development related to the efforts of private equity to take stakes in energy companies, last Tuesday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-0 to reject a petition to reopen its 2023 consent order allowing a $5.2 billion cash-and-stock deal between private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners and natural gas producer EQT Corporation. The 2023 consent order resolved anti-trust concerns that the deal would make Quantum—a direct competitor of EQT in the production and sale of natural gas in the Appalachian Basin—one of EQT’s largest shareholders and provide it a seat on EQT’s board of directors. The 2023 consent order also addressed an existing joint venture between EQT and Quantum, which involved purchasing mineral rights in the Appalachian Basin and raised concerns about anticompetitive information exchange that could harm competition in the acquisition of mineral rights. The FTC’s vote last week means it is leaving in place the 2023 consent order under which Quantum is prohibited from occupying an EQT board seat to prevent the formation of an interlocking directorate (i.e., when a person serves on the boards of multiple corporations at the same time). The final order also required Quantum to divest its EQT shares, prevent anticompetitive information exchanges, unwind the joint venture between the two entities, and impose additional restraints to protect competition.
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