RTP's Fourth Branch Podcast

The Department of Labor administers and enforces more than 180 federal laws, with mandates and regulations that affect workplace activities for about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. Since its creation in 1913, DOL has been in the vanguard of the regulatory state.

This episode, moderated by former Solicitor of Labor Gregory Jacob, features a discussion with Cheryl Stanton, head of DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, and Jonathan Berry, head of its regulatory policy shop, about how President Trump’s Department of Labor is stewarding the responsibilities that have been entrusted to its care.

Featuring:
- Jonathan Berry, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Labor
- Cheryl M. Stanton, Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor
- [Moderator] Gregory Jacob, Partner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP

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In statutes such as the Federal Power Act and Clean Water Act, Congress divided responsibility for oversight of energy generation and transmission projects between federal agencies and the States. In recent years, several States have more aggressively used their perceived statutory and regulatory authority in furtherance of climate change goals, prompting litigation from affected parties and regulatory pushback from the Trump Administration. Our experts will discuss the most recent legal and regulatory skirmishes over the balancing of federal and state jurisdiction over energy policy, including: Judicial rejection of extended consideration of Section 401 certification requests; EPA proposed Clean Water Act regulations; State subsidies for power generation plants and renewable power mandates; and, State-issued rights of first refusal to incumbent utilities to build transmission lines.

Featuring:
- Gordon A. Coffee, Partner, Winston & Strawn LLP
- Prof. Ari Peskoe, Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School

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Earlier in October, the D.C. Circuit issued its long-awaited opinion in Mozilla v. Federal Communications Commission in which the court largely upheld the Commission’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order that reversed the Obama Administration’s 2015 decision to apply common carrier regulation to the Internet. While the court upheld the bulk of the agency’s actions as reasonable under the Supreme Court’s rulings in Chevron and Brand X, the court also found that the agency lacked plenary preemption authority over state efforts to regulate the Internet under the FCC’s theory of the case. As such, this case does not mark the end of the net neutrality debate; instead, it simply closes one chapter and opens a new one.

In this episode, a panel of legal and economic experts share their views of the court’s reasoning and of the implications of this case upon the on-going net neutrality debate.

Featuring:
- Russell P. Hanser, Partner, Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP
- Prof. Daniel Lyons, Professor of Law, Boston College Law School
- Dr. George S. Ford, Chief Economist, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy
Studies
- Moderator: Lawrence J. Spiwak, President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public
Policy Studies

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This podcast features a fascinating back-and-forth on the implications of new amendments to California's privacy law, CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). Is California setting the law of the land? How will the FTC respond? What will this mean for interstate online commerce? These and other questions are explored in the episode.

Featuring:
- Ian Adams, Vice President of Policy, TechFreedom
- Joseph Jerome, Policy Counsel, Privacy & Data, Center for Democracy & Technology
- [Moderator] Adam Thierer, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University

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On September 10, 2019, The Federalist Society hosted a luncheon cosponsored with the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO). CEO released and presented a new study and report entitled “Race and Ethnicity in Undergraduate Admissions at Five Virginia Universities," which examined how admissions programs at five Virginia public universities (University of Virginia, College of William & Mary, Virginia Tech, James Madison University, and George Mason University) preference certain applicants based on race. The results of the study and its implications for the broader academic discussion of racial preferences in college admissions were discussed by the panelists.

Featuring:
- Todd Gaziano, Chief of Legal Policy and Strategic Research and Director, Center for the Separation of Powers, Pacific Legal Foundation
- Althea Nagai, Research Fellow, Center for Equal Opportunity
- Theodore M. Shaw, Julius L. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil Rights, University of North Carolina School of Law
- Hans A. von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
- Moderator: Linda Chavez, Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity

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The status of independent contractors in California has been hotly debated over the past year, with the landmark California Supreme Court decision in Dynamex and with the resulting debate over California’s Assembly Bill 5. The ABC test, if ultimately adopted in the Golden State, would reclassify as employees millions of workers who currently operate as independent contractors. The impact on California's economy – the fifth largest in the world – could be extraordinary.

In this episode, Bruce J. Sarchet gives an overview of the ABC Test; an analysis of the provisions of California’s AB 5; a discussion of the potential impacts on the California and U.S. economy should the bill be passed into law; and options for compliance.

Featuring:
- Bruce J. Sarchet, Shareholder, Littler Mendelson P.C.

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What are the costs and benefits of occupational licensing? Why do many believe that the laws around licensing ought to be reformed, and what has Arizona been doing to address these concerns? Jon Riches of the Goldwater Institute gives an overview of this issue as it has played out in the Grand Canyon State.

Featuring:
- Jon Riches, Director of National Litigation, Goldwater Institute

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Is “investor protection” coordinated sufficiently with “promotion of capital formation”? This teleforum will consider this question in connection with recent public rulemaking developments at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Public companies in the United States are subject to requirements (i) to establish and maintain internal control over financial reporting and (ii) to have their external auditors attest to, and report on, management’s assessment of these internal controls. These requirements, which some have criticized as imposing excessive costs on smaller public companies, were introduced in part as a reaction to corporate scandals. The Securities and Exchange Commission recently proposed amendments to the existing regulations that would, if adopted, lighten the regulatory burdens for smaller reporting issuers. Some proponents of the amendments argue that exempting smaller issuers from some requirement is critical to promoting their capital formation activities; some opponents contend that the proposed amendments could jeopardize the investor-protection elements of the capital markets.
Featuring:

John Berlau, Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Wes Bricker, US & Mexico Assurance Leader and Vice Chair, PwC
Prof. J.W. Verret, Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School
[Moderator] C. Wallace DeWitt, Senior Counsel, Allen & Overy LLP

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In this episode, Alexander Major and Franklin Turner, nationally recognized commentators in this area, will discuss the recent changes to critical requirements promulgated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the auditing effort underway by the Defense Contract Management Agency, and DoD’s looming Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program. The discussion will be moderated by Dan Kelly.

Featuring:
- Alexander Major, Partner and Co-Leader of Government Contracts & Export Controls Practice Group, McCarter & English LLP
- Franklin Turner, Partner and Co-Leader of Government Contracts & Export Controls Practice Group, McCarter & English LLP
- [Moderator] Daniel Kelly, Partner, Government Contracts & Export Controls Practice Group, McCarter & English LLP

Visit our website – www.RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.

"Techlash" refers to a growing public concern over the behavior of big technology companies and the call for government action to curtail what are seen as abusive practices. Figures on the right and the left alike have expressed concerns of over privacy, free speech, and fairness on online platforms. Most recently, 50 attorneys general have launched an investigation into Google for violations of antitrust law.

In this episode, Adam Thierer moderates a discussion between Geoffrey Manne and Hal Singer on whether these concerns represent genuine consumer harm and whether antitrust law is an appropriate means to address them.

Featuring:
- Geoffrey Manne, President and Founder, International Center for Law & Economics
- Hal Singer, Managing Director, Econ One
- [Moderator] Adam Thierer, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University


Resources discussed in today's episode:
- "Concluding Comments: The Weakness of Interventionist Claims (FTC Hearings, ICLE Comment 11)" (https://laweconcenter.org/resource/icle-comments-ftc-hearings-on-competition-consumer-protection-in-the-21st-century-summary/)
- "The Real Reason Foundem Foundered" (https://laweconcenter.org/resource/the-real-reason-foundem-foundered/)
- "Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google" (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1577556)
- "How Big Tech Threatens Economic Liberty" (https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-big-tech-threatens-economic-liberty/)
- "Sorry, Mr. Delrahim: Big Tech’s Worst Abuses Can’t Be Cured Without Stiffer Regulation" (https://promarket.org/mr-delrahim-big-tech-worst-abuses-cant-be-cured-without-stiffer-regulation/)

Visit our website – www.RegProject.org – to learn more, view all of our content, and connect with us on social media.