Overnight Regulation: Fallout from Trump DACA decision | DOJ drops overtime rule appeal | Lenovo settles privacy claim with FTC

Welcome back to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill, the courts and beyond. It’s Tuesday evening, and Congress is back for a brutal month following its August recess. With deadlines on government funding, increasing the debt, funding relief from Hurricane Harvey and a slew of other issues on the docket due for the fall, they will have their hands full.

 

THE BIG STORY: Trump rescinding DACA program

President Trump is pulling the plug on an Obama-era program allowing young people who came to the country illegally as children to live here free from fear of deportation, and passing the buck to Congress.

“The program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in a televised statement on Tuesday.

Trump released a written statement that cast President Obama’s creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as going beyond his constitutional responsibilities.

“There can be no path to principled immigration reform if the executive branch is able to rewrite or nullify federal laws at will,” Trump said.

DACA recipients are undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. They had passed background checks and paid a fee to get deferral from deportation and a work permit. Obama put the program in place through a 2012 executive order. Approximately 800,000 people are recipients under the program.

Get all the details here.

 

More on the DACA fallout…

Read Trump’s full statement.

Businesses are not happy with Trump’s announcement:

DACA announcement sparks protests outside White House, Trump Tower

Trump tells Congress it’s their job to deal with it:

Obama calls DACA decision cruel

Celebs rip DACA move

Ryan calls for ‘permanent legislative solution’ on DACA

McConnell praises Trump

McCain calls Trump DACA decision ‘wrong approach’

 

ON TAP FOR WEDNESDAY

The Atlantic Council hosts an event on NAFTA and Energy at 8:30 a.m.

The EPA is holding a hearing on greenhouse gas emissions standards.

Senate Appropriations subcommittees mark up the Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations Bill and the State & Foreign Operations Appropriations bill.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce Hearing holds a hearing on “The “Sharing Economy: Creating Opportunities for Innovation and Flexibility.” at 10 a.m.

A House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security is holding a hearing on eligibility for disability benefits at 10 a.m.

A House Science Subcommittee on the Environment holds a hearing on the EPA’s IRIS program at 10 a.m.

The House Committee on Small Business holds a hearing on “Expediting Economic Growth: How Streamlining Federal Permitting Can Cut Red Tape for Small Businesses” at 10 a.m.

 

REG ROUNDUP

Finance: The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that it will not defend an Obama-era Labor Department rule that would have extended overtime benefits to more than 4 million workers.

It follows a decision from a federal judge in Texas striking down the rule last week.

The administration will drop its appeal, first filed in December, signaling that it agrees with the court’s decision, Bloomberg BNA reported.

Last week, Judge Amos Mazzant struck down the rule, arguing that while the administration had the right to set a salary threshold, in this case it was set so high that it did not account for workers’ actual duties. Mazzant said the rule would have forced companies to pay overtime even to some management workers exempt from such protections.

The Obama rule would have forced employers to pay overtime to most salaried workers earning less than $47,476 annually. The salary cutoff for overtime pay now stands at $23,660.

Mazzant initially put the rule on hold last November. It was set to go into place on Dec. 1.

The rule was challenged by business groups and by 21 states who said it would have raised costs for businesses and cost jobs.

The Hill’s John Bowden has more here.

 

Education: The Education Department on Friday announced it will stop working with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to police student loan fraud.

The department, now led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, canceled agreements with the CFPB from 2011 and 2013 that established the working relationship, arguing the agency violated its terms by overstepping its boundaries.

Education Department officials said the CFPB violated the agreements by not directing complaints about Title IV student loans to the department within 10 days; instead, the bureau addressed the cases.

The Education officials said the department “takes exception to the CFPB unilaterally expanding its oversight role to include the Department’s contracted federal loan servicers,” and called it “characteristic of an overreaching and unaccountable agency.”

Sylvan Lane has more here.

 

Technology: The computer manufacturer Lenovo has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and 32 state attorneys general over charges that preloaded software on its laptops compromised user privacy.

Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen said that the third-party software was able to intercept browsing data from Lenovo’s users, even when they visited encrypted web pages.

“Lenovo compromised consumers’ privacy when it preloaded software that could access consumers’ sensitive information without adequate notice or consent to its use,” Ohlhausen said in a statement. “This conduct is even more serious because the software compromised online security protections that consumers rely on.”

The Hill’s Harper Neidig has more on the settlement here.

 

Labor: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka ripped President Trump on Labor Day for repealing key protections for workers.

Trumka said Monday on CNN that Trump has repeatedly “assaulted” major regulations aimed at keeping American workers safe.

“He’s assaulted just about every health and safety regulation out there, whether it’s from beryllium or silica,” Trumka said. “He attacked the overtime regulations; he attacked regulations for consumer protection.”

Trumka acknowledged that Trump had attracted support from workers during the 2016 presidential campaign but argued he “hasn’t really done a good job” since taking office.

Read more here.

 

Environment: A trio of Senate Democrats is asking President Trump to reinstate the flood standard for infrastructure that he rolled back weeks ago.

Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) say Hurricane Harvey should serve to demonstrate how important it is for federal policies to incentivize building in a way that accounts for sea-level rise and extreme flooding.

“This common-sense, flexible approach provided agencies with many different options for complying with the new standard, including taking into account available climate science or building to withstand a 500-year storm — the same kind of destructive event that the residents of eastern Texas just endured,” they wrote to Trump on Tuesday.

“Please take action at the executive level to ensure that the billions of taxpayer dollars are not wasted on building infrastructure that is vulnerable to destruction and that threatens American lives.”

Under the earlier policy, former President Barack Obama directed federal agencies to develop policies to ensure that infrastructure and other federally funded projects can withstand future extreme weather events.

Timothy Cama has the story here.

 

Tech: The American Gaming Association on Tuesday filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of New Jersey, which wants to end the federal ban on sports betting.

The 26-page amicus brief takes aim at the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), passed in 1992, that prohibits states from allowing sports betting.

The legislation, the brief argues, “prevents States and tribal sovereign governments states from repealing or amending laws that their citizens no longer support.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in June agreed to hear New Jersey’s challenge to the federal ban on sports wagering and betting. The case is pitting several states, law enforcement groups and gambling advocates against college and professional sports leagues.

The Hill’s Megan R. Wilson has the details here.

 

ALSO IN THE NEWS

The New York Times: Senate Dem pushing for government-wide ban of Russian cyber firm

Reuters: Regulation of digital coin offerings needed for healthy market, says China central bank adviser

Bloomberg: Banks look to step up employee surveillance

Recode: These four key areas of Trump’s tech policy are top of mind for Silicon Valley CEOs

Send tips, story ideas and compliments to nelis@digital-staging.thehill.com and follow me on Twitter @NivElis.