Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to the Adverse Effect Wage Rate.

Plain-English Summary

This bill is a "resolution of disapproval," which is a tool Congress can use to cancel a regulation that a federal agency has recently put in place. Specifically, this bill targets a rule created by the Department of Labor related to something called the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) — a minimum wage standard that employers must pay to foreign agricultural guest workers (known as H-2A workers) to ensure that hiring those workers does not negatively impact the wages of American workers doing similar jobs.

The Department of Labor periodically updates how it calculates this wage rate. This bill would use a law called the Congressional Review Act to officially reject and cancel whatever updated rule the Department of Labor issued regarding how the AEWR is determined. If passed, the rule would be eliminated and could not be reissued in a substantially similar form without new authorization from Congress.

This bill would primarily affect agricultural employers who hire foreign guest workers through the H-2A visa program, as well as the American and foreign farmworkers whose wages are influenced by that rate. Depending on what the Department of Labor's rule changed, blocking it could mean wage rates for these workers are set differently — either higher or lower — than what the rule would have required.

The bill has been introduced in the House and referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, which handles Congressional Review Act resolutions. It has not yet been voted on.