Players to watch: Regulations
Richard Cordray, CFPB director
The administration’s top consumer watchdog has been a target of Republicans since he came into office and will be busy this fall working to implement a number of controversial rules.
Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, will be issuing new rules for payday lenders after his agency in March released a report ripping them as “spider webs of debt.” The report targeted high interest rates and fees and shorter repayment times that it said trap consumers.
He’s also issuing tougher rules on prepaid card companies, and rules to limit the fees banks can charge customers for overdrafts on checking accounts. Both sets of rules are meant to attack predatory practices.
And Cordray is looking into new protections for mortgage holders, another issue where the administration is seeking to portray itself as a protector of the middle class. The mortgage rules are a worry for the banking industry.
— Tim Devaney
Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Secretary
Johnson will lead the administration’s efforts to address the flood of tens of thousands of migrant children pouring illegally into the United States, with an eye to the road ahead on immigration.
It will put Johnson at the heart of the midterm election race. He and the administration must tread carefully on what is a thorny issue at the best of times.
Earlier this year, Obama tapped Johnson to review the nation’s deportation policies in an effort to make them more humane. But Johnson’s findings were kept under wraps in hopes that Congress could come to terms on an immigration bill.
Those hopes have faded, and the administration is again said to be weighing executive action. Johnson will play a crucial role in the politically perilous decision.
— Ben Goad
Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.)
Kline figures to be a constant thorn in the side of the National Labor Relations Board.
And as the NLRB has been active under President Obama, so will the chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee be in the spotlight.
The NLRB is expected this fall to issue a ruling on whether Northwestern University’s football team can organize the first union for college athletes — a disruptive move that Kline says would take attention away from education.
Kline is also battling labor unions over efforts to speed up union elections, and whether to allow multiple “micro unions” to form within a single workplace. Moves by the NLRB are possible in both issues this fall.
Another issue Kline is watching is whether corporations, such as McDonald’s, should be held responsible for labor violations made by their franchises.
— Tim Devaney
Tom Perez, Labor Secretary
Perez figures to be among the busiest of President Obama’s lieutenants this fall.
The Labor Department is churning out regulations in support of the administration’s populist economic agenda, all under Perez’s watch.
In his first year in office, Perez has issued a long-stalled rule limiting construction workers’ exposure to silica dust and extended minimum wage rights to home healthcare workers, among other protections.
He’s presiding over an even more ambitious set of rules, including an increase to the minimum wage for federal contractors, an expansion of overtime pay to millions of workers and regulations meant to ban discrimination in the workplace.
With Congress split on Obama’s push for pay equality and other worker protections, Perez’s agency is where the action will take place.
— Ben Goad
Howard Shelanski, OIRA administrator
Shelanski is the gatekeeper for all major rules from the Obama administration.
Not surprisingly, that’s led to a full plate.
The White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is reviewing 24 rules this fall that are considered “economically significant,” meaning they would have an economic impact of more than $100 million per year if passed.
The pending rules include energy efficiency standards for everything from dishwashers to furnaces and commercial air conditioners, calorie-labeling requirements for food sold in vending machines and harvesting regulations for fruits and vegetables.
Business groups complain that the regulations would unnecessarily increase compliance costs, burdening an economy that is on the rebound.
With Republicans looking to argue that President Obama is holding back the economy ahead of the midterm elections, how Shelanski moves forward with the regulations will be key.
— Tim Devaney
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