I will pass it over to jd foster. Pleasure to have you with us today. Nice to be here with my colleague, randy. Before we begin i want to acknowledge the people in houston and those suffering from hurricane harvey. Wish them on behalf of the chamber the safety and swiftest possible recovery from what theyre dealing with. The economy is in its ninth year of expansion. Which is fairly notable. That makes it the third longest in modern era. By next spring we will have tied for second and curiously, despite the length of the recovery and expansion, we seem to be possibly heading into a period of acceleration. Normally as the expansion goes along, the economy slows a bit. Instead we may have something of an acceleration. The reason for that, is somewhat in this chart. If you look down on the far lefthand side of november, theres the little dip, that corresponds to the period right before the election. And we had the election and surprising many people, the stock market has taken off since then. So far 16 increase, often called the trump bump. Whether President Trump gets the credit for this economic historians will determine. But theres to doubt that the timing of the increase in the stock market coincides with the election of President Trump. Why might the economy act that way with an acceleration . The reason i think the one that you could give. Is that with the election of donald trump, we had the promise now that Hillary Clintons foot would not be replacing Barack Obamas foot on the economys regulatory brake. One thing at the beginning of the Trump Administration was to bring a strong stop to the regulatory outpourings that were under way under president obama and those regulatory outpourings, had a distinct Chilling Effect on Economic Growth. We saw in the Second Quarter that the economy accelerated up to 3 . You dont want to make too much out of a single quarters number, but thats a promising figure, a strong and balanced representation of the economy. So there is some hope that that will continue for a while. It wont go on indefinitely, however. Ellen blinder, former fed vice chair, recently wrote an article in which he observed that economies and their expansions dont end just because they get tired. They dont come to a conclusion just because youve run out of string, they end because something happened. Thats what well see again. Sometimes its bad luck, theres a major war or some economic shock in the world that will trigger a recession, sometimes theres a bubble developing in the economy and it finally pops. We have the dotcom bubble at the end of the bill clinton administration. Popped. We had a recession. Prior to that, we what recession in george h. W. Bushs term when the real estate bubble popped. We had the great global recession when the Financial Markets and the Global Housing market popped together. We do have today as dr. Blinder observes, we dont have any of those obvious bubbles in the economy. That isnt an apparent risk. One thing that people might point to is that bond prices are very high because stock prices are extraordinarily low. Thats an area of concern, but thats been going on for some time. The one area where we do have to be concerned is in policy. And the debt limit. The debt limit is coming due sometime in the end of september, early october. We dont know exactly when. At this point the treasury wont have the resources necessary to pay all the bills. And we will have a technical default at the very least. Nobody knows how terrible the outcome of such an event would be. It would almost certainly be quite terrible. Thats the example of bad policy thats easy to avoid. We need to raise the debt limit and haas what the chamber has been calling on congress and the president to do. Its not going to be easy. But it simply has to be done if we avoid that and similar examples of bad policy, then the economy should continue to do very well. We have the opportunity even at this late date to do things to make the economy even stronger. Taking the foot off the regulatory brake was an obvious example. We had a big victory on that score in the eeo 1 ruling. A perfect example of taking the foot off the regulatory brake. And understand its not just the regulations themselves in their direct costs. But its what it does to the psychology of the Business Community as it thinks about investing Going Forward. Thats the overwhelming effect of the Regulatory Environment. What it does to business psychology investment. Now that the brake is off, if thats going to have an effect, where we see it first is acceleration in business and investment. And infrastructure bill, americas infrastructure we know needs more funding. Its not a in a very good state. Additional funding for infrastructure for smart projects would make the economy more efficient. Thats how you make an economy grow more rapidly. Expanding free trade is an another area where we can expand economic efficiency, thats how you make an economy grow more rapidly. The big deal obviously is comprehensive pro growth tax reform this is the one policy area where congress and the president can by far make the biggest difference in terms of accelerating Economic Growth in the u. S. Economy. Comprehensive tax reform, built around lower tax rates. More internationally competitive, International Tax system. These are the core ingredients, if congress can get those things done well have a much stronger economy for a long period of time. On the other hand, no one should think that the failure to do tax reform means the economy will grow along on the same path weve had recently and would expect to otherwise have. If we dont have tax reform, sometime this year or early next year, a lot of Business Investment thats been predicated on getting tax reform done will have been poorly made. Business investment will contract significantly and we will have a significant period of economic weakness in my opinion. How weak, we dont know. Its not something you want to run. Not a risk you want to run. This isnt just about if you do it things are much better. In the long run they would be. Its also a matter if you dont get tax reform done, youre likely to have a much weaker economy in the latter half of 2018 and the immediate future thereafter. This is why u. S. Chamber president who said failure is not an option on tax reform. Turning now to the labor markets. Were in the happy position of finally approaching full employment. It should have happened in 2012 or so. Were a few years later, but were finally approaching full employment. The employ are Unemployment Rate has been at 5 or below since 2015. August of 2015, 5 or so is the generally regarded as approximating full employment. We are not quite at full employment yet, and the way you can tell that is in the last year we had job growth of 2. 2 million jobs or 180,000 a month. When we are at full employment and the labor force is growing about with population, we will have closer to 75,000 to 100,000 jobs. So that will be one of your signs that we are at full employment if the is otherwise growing as expected and job growth slows to 100,000 or so on a regular basis, now you will be at full employment. So were not quite there yet. Another sign of this is the growth of employment that shows the significant steady growth and another sign of how tight labor markets are in one respect is that initial unemployment claims are amazingly low right now. They are running about 25,000 240,000, excuse me, a week and that is an extremely low number and anything above 350 to 400 is suggestive of expansion. Curious things are going on in americas labor markets. While never a spectacular job growth, that in fact, exceeded what you would otherwise expect given the elements of expansion in the economy. On the other hand, we havent had much real wage growth. Real wages popped up, as youll see here, if you look at that gray bar in the period of recession and curiously real wages popped up in the middle of the recession. What was that all about . We had six months of deflation. And the denominator and when you have deflation, even if nominal wages are flat you get a big jump in real wages, but after that, they were stagnant, fell for a bit, and it wasnt until about 2013 that they finally started to rise and it didnt rise rapidly, but they were rising consistently year after year. What we expect now that we are getting close to full employment is that we will open the last chapter of the labor market story from coming out of the great global recession. We are still dealing, in effect, with the consequences of that recession. First, it was the expansion of employment up to the point when you are at full employment and it will traps la it will translation into faster, real wage growth. Faster real wage growth as employers have to bid more for workers, its an interesting thing. Weve heard for months now, for years, in fact, the story from employers that they cant find the workers that they need. Weve had workers without jobs and jobs without workers and part of that was the skills mismatch. The economy has to adjust and workers have to adjust to what employers are looking for and employers have to adjust to the workforces available and thats certainly been a factor. Another factor has been that employers werent able to find the employers employees they were looking for at the wages they expected to pay. As labor markets continue to tighten and employers get increasingly desperate for workers, what you will see is employers will have to revise their expectations of what they were going to pay and the workers there will be hiring and those wage increases will percolate through the rest of the labor force. So that is a reason why i think youre going to see an acceleration in real wage growth Going Forward. Thats great for families and great for Household Incomes. It does have consequences for the rest of the economy, however. For one thing, as real wages finally start to rise significantly, employers will be being looking for opportunities to use less capital and one labor, once Factory Production gets more expensive, you start to look more at the other. The other thing employers have a consequence of this is that Household Incomes will maintain a strong growth in the aggregate even as labor employment growth slows, youll have an acceleration in wages and you put those two factors together and youre able to sustain the growth in Household Income which is great for maintaining personal consumption. You really want those things to Work Together so you can maintain personal consumption in the economy and keep Economic Growth going. The other consequence, however, will be more pressure on business profits. A lot of businesses have been doing very well in this expansion. Some of them have just been eking out profits along the way, as they face higher labor costs and their cost structure rises. They will increasingly have difficulty making ends meet. One of the odd things that happens when you get to this part of a Business Cycle and this part of an expansion is you start seeing an increase in business failures because rising wages become more expensive than the employers can bear and you start seeing an increase in business failures. This is actually a sign of health. Now, of course, its highly lamentable to the Business Owners and the workers working for them because theyre going to have to find new jobs. The good news is the labor market will be tight and they will be able to find new jobs, but this is another part of the chapter of the story of the expansion coming out of the great global recession, the fact that youre going to get a slowdown in job growth, an acceleration of real wages and if both of those things occur then youll probably see an increase in business failure rate which will surprisingly and perhaps counterintuitively be a sign of economic strength, not weakness. It doesnt mean were sliding toward a recession. It means were starting to move resources to where they can be used most productively which is another source of Economic Growth. So the bottom line is we are very close to full employment finally. The economy is doing quite well. Were benefiting from a synchronized Global Expansion for the first time in many years, almost all of the Major Economic centers in the Global Economy are doing reasonably well. That means theyre all supporting one another. Were all stronger if were all stronger. It means real wages should be rising and what we have to do right now is make sure that this continues. If we want to see this increase in real wages we have to keep the rest of the economy going. That means avoiding unforced errors and policy like the debt limit and infrastructure, tax reform and trade to make sure that we give the economy the policy support it needs and if we do all of those things and Congress Passes a tax reform and on a timely basis and some time preferably this year. The economy should continue to do very well for a long time as allen blinder pointed out, expansions dont end just because they get tired. What we need to do is make sure theres enough energy in the economy and enough strength through good policy that the expansion continues for a long time. Im looking forward to setting a new record for the longest expansion in American History. Thank you. So its time to take my millions out of my passport savings account and put it in the market. Ill look into that. So this is the time of the year thats me, randall johnson. The time of the year where the management gets labor day and the unions and typically the unions kick it off with comments about employers along the lines that employers are not doing enough for their employees and theyre bashing their employees and therefore they need to join the unions and therefore the membership rate is continuing to climb and not go up despite the fact that the employers are not treating their employees right is they have Union Campaigns and its part of my job on today to try to take five minutes and set the record straight. So lets take a look at how our employers are treating employees and lets take some of the views of employees. These are numbers that are all good news so they rarely get reported on. Theyre not false news, but theyre all hard data that we have picked from very straightforward, governmental databases, and i think it tells quite a story. So 9. 9 trillion in total compensation, wages and salaries accounted for 8 trillion. Employers spent approximately 9. 9 trillion or 19 total compensation. I know you have handouts on this stuff, but it is worth hitting on particularly for those of you who may be watching from home. Health benefits and Health Care Gets a lot of attention these days on capitol hill and the private market, et cetera, and the employerbased system, 177. 5 million americans received their Health Insurance from the point of base coverage. That does include state and local governments. They always do that, randy. In the private sector, we have 150 million americans receiving their employerbased coverage strictly through coverage sector employers and retirement benefits. We do have a retiree crisis in this country. We all know with the Social Security problems coming up and people need to save more, but employers are doing their bit on this, and private employers spent 242. 3 billion on Retirement Income benefits on 216. D. B. Retirement plans and 41. 2 million participants and 2014 d. C. Plans which probably everybody in this room has and define Contribution Plans and covered 92. 6 active participants and theyre eligible to participate in the defined plan. They have 401 k plans and thats an impressive figure. Everyone knows sort of about health care and pension benefits, but also in the area of leave and Life Insurance benefits. Paid leave or the absence of that gets much attention on capitol hill. I think people look at the data. Paid leave is one of the most Common Benefits offered to employees. Its a typo there. Offered to employees. Over threefourths of employees in the private sector including parttime workers receive parttime off. 95 of fulltime workers in the private sector have access to paid vacation days. Is it less generous in Smaller Companies . Yeah, but in Smaller Companies these people know their employees and they try to work on an ad hoc basis even if they dont have a policy of sorts and its over half of employees in private industry. Lets go to the next you might say, well, okay. Thats a lot of data rain, but what will employees think . Here is a recent survey . Approximately half, 49 of American Workers are very satisfied with their current job, very satisfied with their current job or another 30 are somewhat satisfied meaning 79 are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their job. Most people feel secure in their jobs. 88 are either not all likely or not too likely to think they will lose their jobs and thats from a pugh study, october 6, 2016. Even better, august 23, 2017, a gallup poll released 49 of adults are totally satisfied with the physical conditions of their workforce. 95 of their relations with coworkers and 95 of the hours and that came out august 23, 2017. So these statistics only tell part of a story, of course, but the surveys are very important for you to be aware of when you hear about contrary stories of those who paint a dire picture of the workforce. Why are Union Memberships on the decline . With passing case law favorable to the unions. We can talk about this forever, and one of the reasons is many benefits, are now provided by federal statutes and state statutes. Thats true. Another reason, however, is there still remains this problem, frankly, of the perception of Union Corruption and sometimes youre on the road and you cant swing a cat without running into a story about Union Corruption. The bls the Labor Department and the Labor Management standards forces this area. In 2016, 90 indictments and 87 convictions. Former Union Employee sentenced for embezzlement. Union officer sentenced for embezzling union funds. Union employee sent to prison for larceny in over 190,000 union funds. I point these out and i can go on. One more case, Kansas City Star where ill just it involved the union boilermakerers where it went on and on about how they pretended to revise their procedures internally and two years later they were spending the union dues money on lavish hotel, parties, et cetera. I bring this up because when you hear talk about the Union Movement and when they talk about so many workers want to join unions they rarely see any discussion of the fact. You as an employee have to Pay Union Dues or you will get fired in nonright to work states. So those union dues you have to pay and you get fired and often those union dues are embezzled by corrupt Union Officials and it is a story not told by the Union Movement and needs to be focused on. Its not like you can use a union. These dues are used and often theyre misused. Lastly, i want to point out that the bullet here and the Public Sector. This alarming trend of almost the number of employees in the Public Sector which belonged to a union is approaching that in the private sector. What we have is a phenomena of employees in the Public Sector aligned with politicians who will vote for bigger spending programs to keep those same employees employed and those bigger spending programs will be paid for by workers in the private sector. Thises has been a growing issue for over the last 15 years and i think this shows that its becoming a worse and worse situation where the private sector is getting eaten up by the Public Sector spending. So real quick here, and i used to have powerpoints that were full of data and i went through a minimalist approach here. Labor policy priorities. You have papers there on your table. Very quickly, j. D. Mentioned weve had some successes in rolling back obamacare regulations and the rights with the resolution, and we have it on the paper to hear the rule making. The walk around and the interpretation was rescinded and two interpretations at dol dealing with joint employers and independent contractors and lastly, the new one that was just repealed a couple of days ago was the eeoc reporting requirements which have gotten much attention in the press. I just want to know that these were not under title 7. These were sent back under the paperwork reduction map and i emphasize the word reduction and yet, this is how eeoc justified under the Obama Administration. So this was the old form, okay . Employees have complied with it and its a known entity and eeoc sent this under the paperwork reduction. Reduction act, so heres what the new form was. Come on, let me pull this up. This is the new form. Im not quite sure how this is a reduction in paper and omb under the Trump Administration had the guts to recognize that they, in fact, the Prior Administration under obama failed to apply the requirements of the reduction act and they properly exercised their responsibility and sent it back to eeoc. So is the burdens were woefully underestimated by eeoc and the benefits were woefully estimated and oira, is one of the few laws that, in facts, oira can enforce and its been a lost art since the reagan days and they stepped in and said it was approved for political reasons under the last administration and well do our job and they sent it back to eeoc and thats what it was all about. Pretty simple. The paperwork reduction act is boom, boom, boom, argument. It wasnt a victory for the Business Community and between blacklisting bookses and persuader which i didnt mention. Probably it was in the Business Community and the 2. 7 billion, thats with a b and all of this money can be pumped into the economy more productively. Going forward, well go through the overtime regulations and the joint employer issue. There are a couple of pieces of lgsz on capitol hill, hr3341 which we strongly support and well talk about that later. Once we clear the brush with regard with what the last administration did well be surveying our members and setting our agenda. You do have policy papers in front of you which i recommend for your perusal at night and theyre on our website, and i wasnt going to put a map and i looked at them last night and they were so damn good and i thought well put them up. Health care, look, well let the dust settle to figure out what well do next and well dodge the pleading and restore the cost sharing reduction payments and also extend the delay and the Health Insurance tax. A lot of people think it helps big Health Insurance companies. Even cbo says that that tax is likely passed to the consumers with higher premiums and both of these initiatives are important to lessen the increases in premiums. Im not going to say eliminate increases and it will lessen the increases in premiums that would otherwise occur and theres not a hidden agenda going on here. As far as other priorities that are in the documents and as j. D. Said were focusing our attention on tax reform and were not giving up on healthcare, but well let the dust settle and see where we go. The policy, and well be heavily involveded in at dol. It does hurt for Small Businesses to provide the retirement advice to employees that they need. We have a lot of resources and we have a lot going on in terms of the policy recommendations which is on the white paper there in terms of Going Forward to make d. C. And d. B. Plans just easier to minister so more employers can offer them. Theyre not earthshaking idea, but they can get done and thats something on our website, but discussed in the policy papers. I want to conclude with immigration. We dont have a policy paper on immigration. Its a more controversial area and were trying to figure out where our interests align with the Trump Administration. I will reassert that theres no question that immigration as a whole is an economic benefit to this country. The studies on that are endless. That doesnt mean theres not a need for changes. Of course, there are, and were willing to engage with the Trump Administration on meritbased immigration principles. Weve sat down with the cotton staff on the purdue cotton bill and there may be some room there to talk. On the other hand, we cant gut family immigration. Immigration across the board within some limitations is a benefit to this country and thats the position of the chamber. Look for a Major Chamber white paper coming out in september on this to reassert these principles with a lot of updated resources. Let me just say on this point that if immigration wasnt a benefit to this country, you wouldnt have cities across this country such as st. Louis, detroit, philadelphia and others actively reaching out to immigrants and the reason theyre doing that is because these individuals and the view of the people who run those cities reactivate the economies in those cities and theyre not seen as a burden on social welfare and services. So all of the studies in the world are one thing, but where the rubber meets the road where mayors have to run cities and figure out how to meet the bottom line theyre actively recruiting to come into cities and revitalize the economy and thats the best summary of the role of immigration. Look, there are a lot of other things going on and theres mandatory e verify that will pop in the house. I think were all aware that the president may repeal daca in the next few or five days. We hope he doesnt. Im not going to defend the legal principles by which daca was issued. The 60page doj memo was quite complex. Its defensible, but unclear, but these people it was never challenged in court and these people were embedded in the workforce and it seems to us to pull the rug out from under them at this point when Congress Needs to focus on a lot of other issues would be the wrong thing to do. Same thing is coming up with the temporary protected status which we hear the administration is terminating soon and these are millions of programs that millions are embedded in the workforce and we would hope the administration would move cautiously in that area. H1b visa and senator hatch is expected to introduce a bill on that very soon. Keep ill keep you posted on that. Its a program that needing to be revised with greater numbers and also needs to include certain protections for American Workers to improve the program and well be working closely with senator hatch on that. Immigration is a tough issue. There is a lot of emotionalism involveded involved in that and it was from 2001 since i had gray hair and well find the sweet spot and where we can Work Together with our allies on capitol hill. With that, ill all right. Now well open it up for questions. I just ask that you give your name and outlet before you ask your question. Thanks. Ginger gibson with reuters. I want to ask you, particularly, mr. Foster, what you think withdrawing from nafta would do to the u. S. Economy when you talk about forces stopping expansions, do you think that could push the u. S. Into a recession and more broadly what you think the Economic Impacts could be . Well, the impacts would clearly be harmful in two different ways. As i said, expanding trade so we can do best what we do best and others can do best what they do best and were all better off and thats the basic principle and if you withdraw from nafta either quickly or slowly over time and maybe announce it at some future date, youre moving in the wrong direction. So the specific is harmful. The general would be harmful, and that is the president ran on trade policies that were deeply concerning to the Business Community. Since then, his administration has been working through how to manifest those views into actual policy and so far theyve been fairly benign and things we can work with. On the other hand, withdrawing from nafta would be a complete plea different character and would suggest the development of trade policies would be the wrong way to go for the health of the american economy. So theres the specific of withdrawing from nafta and the Business Investment in relationships that are predicated on nafta. That would be gone and then theres the broader theme of the harm that would be done to the trade agenda and the direction of trade policy Going Forward. Any implications for the direction of trade policies Going Forward. It speaks to the broader concept of the psychology within the economy, much as i mentioned in the Regulatory Environment where you have a heavy Regulatory Environment and it changes the environment in general for Business Investment. Hi. Jonathan courier from taxnet. A taxrelated question. You mentioned the dynamic that comey might contract or might weaken if tax reform might pass if early this year or early next year. I was wondering if you could explain that further and if you could discuss whether businesses should be more cautious by making an investment based on those kind of legislative needs. Businesses are making those judgments on their own and im not going to tell them how to whether they should invest more or less, but it is clear that a lot of Business Investment in this country is predicated on certain policy outcomes with uncertainty attached. They dont know what the outcome is going to be. Even if you knew for certain that tax reform would be signed into law some time early this year or later next year. That doesnt mean you know whats in it. There is a vast uncertainty of the content of what tax reform would be. There is a presumption because there is such an overwhelming need to pass tax reform because we are so far out of line with respect to the tax rates, speaking just from the business side that that need is so great that the presumption is, of course, it has to get done and probably will get done and so businesses investing on that basis. If it turned out that tax reform didnt happen there would be a fundamental shift in how businesses are thinking. This is the big shot. We have a better shot at tax reform now than weve had for 30 years by far. If it doesnt happen now the prospects of it happening in the next two years following arent going to be as good, one would presume. That being the case, you would presume the current tax system is staying in place and that would include the International Tax regime. International businesses will think very differently about the u. S. Economy. That translates into a reduction in Business Investment in this country. How much . No way to know. It could be enough to weaken the economy. How far . No way to know. Sean higgins. Washington examiner. One area where your interest with the organized labor due overlap is the socalled cadillac tax and the Affordable Care act. What are the odds for any type of reform of that before it goes into effect or did that ship sort of sail when Health Reform itself crashed in congress . No. Thats one of our, i would say, the insurance reimbursement areas. Health insurance and the insurance are the top three. I wont say i have an unholy alliance and theyre down the street and we talk about cadillac tax and talk about strategy and its very much at the forefront of Employer Community and particularly the selffunded companies and we remain a top priority and we are up there with the medical device tax in terms of getting it done. Alex ruff, bloomberg dna. Theres been some talk about whether or not, if they would end up in tax reform. A lot of these are coming up 2018. Is it a long tax reform or is it a stand alone . The phrase, every option on the table is getting overused these days and i would have to defer to eddie on this so i can keep my job. Look, i think those guys up on the hill and i spent ten years up on the hill and these are tax issues and theyre not going to be walled off from the debate. Speaking parochially, it is important for my view to certainly preserve the existing treatment of Employee Health care benefit which is is that theyre nontaxable which is a big issue among a lot of republican thinkers and certainly the tax incentives for savings whether its a defined contribution. I dont think were in the job of drawing any lines in the sand, but the presumption was that these provisions would be dealt with as part of health care reform. Now we dont know what theyll be dealt with. There is a strong desire to deal with them and theyve not been walled off from tax reform and the folks would prefer to not have more things added to their plate and the task made more complicated, but in fact, as randy said, all things are on the table because the outlines are known to the rest of us. Apparently, they are known to the individuals in the white house and theyre not far enough along to let us know what theyre up to. So again, the presumption is theyll be dealt separately and they may still be dealt separately, but you cant rule out theyre being included as part of tax reform. Touching on that, you mentioned about the Dust Settling on health care. What are you recommending for the bipartisan stabilization effort to help the csrs and do you see the Health Effort kind of being piecemeal rather than another attempt as a big package . Yeah, i think well have to sort through where we will be on that because it certainly is an old saying about once, once the easiest part of the station left behind and were sorting our way through on that one and well start with the members appropriately and frankly, the leadership and the senate in the house. Naomi with the hill. Just curious what your thoughts were about the speech. President trump came yesterday on tax reform and kind of when you think when the Administration Come out with specifics on tax reform. The first thing i would note is we appreciate that the president is four square behind tax reform and that was his most compelling statement yet. Theres no doubt where he his views that we need to get tax reform done and we very much appreciate that. We learned once again over the years of the Obama Administration that tax reform is quite impossible without the president s strong support. President trump wasnt particularly interested in tax reform and so despite a lot of work from a lot of people it never got to the batters box, to use baseball analogy. At least with President Trump, we know the president is deeply interested and we know that his administration is working closely with the house and Senate Leadership to come up with the broad outline so that we all start off on the same page and that is essential especially since we dont have that much time to legislate the bill. When should they come out with more specifics . That depends on a lot of context. There are a lot rf other things going on right now between the spending bill and the debt bill. Need a budget resolution. If you come out with too many specifics of the tax plan too early, it will sit there for a while and that makes it very dif sxult and its easier for people to start focusing on the negatives as opposed to the positives. So the timing will depend a lot on how soon they think they will actually be able to have a markup in the house, ways and Means Committee and thats your spot on the calendar youre looking for is when will ways and means be able to markup a chairmans mark and you back up from that a couple of weeks or so and thats when youll have a sense of when they should come out with more detail, but again, thats going to depend on Everything Else thats happening and the congress is going to have a very full plate for the next month. Hi, juliette iper with the washington post. You talk about the the regulatory underbrush that was cleared out in the past. Can you talk about remaining priorities that you feel like the chamber has and also in terms of the twoforone regulation which we kind of havent seen put into practice yet, can you shed any light on how you think that may be affecting policies Going Forward . Thanks. In regard to the first part of the question, weve still got to finish the appeal and the persuader regulation and the overtime rate is being revisited through the request for information, and it was a request for information and the mpr with the final rule and weve got the court case making its way to the fifth circuit and we have to get persuaded in overtime done. Theres a stay of the osha rule making on recordkeeping which would require employers to report to osha about the injury and illnesses and we post those on the internet somewhere on the eeoi form, ironically and were in court with that and weve intervened and those are three there, obviously, part of of this depends and they get staffed up with the agencies and the secretary and in terms of putting pen to paper i spent a lot of time and i dont think the president will do that with his personal pen. We have to get the right people in place and with regard to the eerc, theres still we need to get more business friendly people over into these agencies and over at the mrb, its not just regulations, of course, and its case law. A lot of people get confused and its getting cases up to the board and review the ferris decision and reverse Specialty Health care and d. R. Horton and in terms of the regulatory side, wed like a new board to revisit and im not sure they will, and i would put them on the plate. With regard to the farreaching thing, theres a lot of interest in revisiting things with the exemption under the fair labor standards act, but ive been through these wars before on labor issues and youre not going to find them with these sort of boundaries and you have to figure out whats really doable and theres only 52 votes in the senate. Whats doable besides just beating our head up against the wall and a lot of issues that never went anywhere and a lot of us have scored political points and it changes to the labor laws and go with those that are well rationalized and i have a policy Committee Structure and those of you that might be on cspan they should join the chamber. We have eeo and im using those to develop the recommendations Going Forward. Im mark chef with Investment News and this question is for randy. Can you elaborate a little bit on the chambers plans and strategy on the fiduciary role this fall and you will put resources in it. Can you quantify that and what are you trying to accomplish and it seems like that regulation is going in your dreshgz with the proposed year and a half delay . I never try to prejudge where rule making will wind up. The secretary will make his decisions based on the record, but we expect this 18month delay to come out of omb, and just going on the press reports that omb is favorably granting an eightmonth extension of the reg and that will give the secretary time to go through thorough rule making on what a new wrench should look like if at all and coordinate with the securities and Exchange Commission which i think is important. Look, theres a lot of p permutations in the 5th circuit and i dont want to prejudge things that make statements here that franklin might come back. Well make our case through surveys of the members of how this is impacting the members in the area and also just employers who are trying to use Financial Advisers to provide advice to their employees and how much its driving up cost and making them more difficult to do that. So we have a survey going on and well, of course, requesting the legal underpinnings of the regulation in many ways and the mandatory arbitration provision thats in there with the big contracts is, like, woefully ridiculously illegal and the contrary is the federal arbitration act with Six Supreme Court decisions, and the implied private cause of action in there we think is not sustainable. So theres a variety of things going on and well participate in the rule making in case we make our case known. Hi. I wanted to ask quickly about the joint employer. Obviously, the house is looking like theyre going to be taking up the legislation there, and im wondering if you guys have any sort of sense on if the legislation stands any sort of chance in getting through the senate or if there might be some sort of way that this could pass. I know that a legislative solution is favored by many members of the Business Community. Yeah. Im quite familiar with the bill, but let me just read you how the minority viewed the bryant phares decision. The joint employer test is impermissively bag. The new test provides no guidance as to when and how parties may contract the performance of work without being viewed as joint employers. As you probably know, its a 30paged ascent which meticulous low dismembers the majority opinion and explains why the test is unworkable. Theres bipartisan interest in this and i would say, among joint employers, one of the Top Priorities and of course, the bill in the house does have bipartisan support, last time i looked, a handful of democrats and this is a labor issue and thats unusual, and i think weve got a shot at well move it through the house. Among a lot of labor issues, i think weve got a shot on this in the senate, and we might take some compromise in the end, but theres a lot of angst over the brown and ferris discussion and how the plaintiffs lawyers have taken it, and theres a lot of push behind us. It could be that the case will move through the Labor Relations board, and that will take the wind out of the sails of the legislation and though wed be happy with that, too. So i think its despite what people think about the senate and labor issues in that constellation. I think this has a decent shot of getting through to the president. Its so imminently reasonable, it should be unanimous consent. Any other questions . All right, thank you oh, one last question . This will be the last one. Jackie lee, bloomberg. I know that the eeo1 forms are stayed and i was wondering what you think a more revised form would look like and if its something that we would see in the foreseeable future . Of course, there is an eeo1 form [ inaudible question ] there is one on the books now and dilemma there, of course sometimes when the eeo1 form, and the e, oc was pushing the vacuum cleaner across the 50 United States and gobbling up a bunch of information and not knowing what to do with it and thats what the eeo expansion was about and maybe theyd find something cool with it and i dont know what the answer to that is. Its got to be within the eeoc statutory mandate which is to enforce the laws and not just gobble up information and maybe bls can do that. I think maybe the agency would be better served to think about promoting pay equity through things like a statutory safe harbor for employers that voluntarily do pay Equity Analysis so they cant be discovered in litigation which is a deterrent for employers to doing their own pay Equity Analysis for their workforce. Theres actually some amendments to the equal pay act in the occupational defense area that we havent talked to republicans about, and the defense make it slightly harder not slightly, making it harder for employers to sort of defend wagebased decisions. In terms of the e, o1 form itself, i guess i am ducking an answer because i dont really know what a suitable alternative to the existing form might be, but again, i would urge people who want to dig into that, dont look at title 7. Look at the paperwork reduction act and look at the requirements that the paperwork reduction act that have been in the books for a long, long time and theyve been traditionally been ignored under this past administration which was deflanked and overruled by people in the white house such as valerie jaret. All right. On that note, we will wrap up and please let us know if you have any questions. You can always get in touch with the chambers press office. Thank you all for attending. Coming up this weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on real america, a 1970s film on the mission and operations of the detroit news. Some things we are liberal and others were conservative, but there is an effort to deal to the best of our ability on both side of the question to give our readers a balanced diet from which they can select their own opinion. Former National Park service, chief historian Robert Sutton on the new england abolitionists to kansas. Particular bostonian businessman by the name of amos adams lawrence, does that name sound familiar . He was so upset by the whole affair that he wrote a letter to his uncle and in the letter he said we went to bed oldfashioned, conservative compromised union wigs and waked up stark mad abolitionists. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern, historian spencer crew on the great migration of africanamericans from the rural south to areas north and west after world war i. The industry is finding to be the case that they have a lack of workers to help prepare the munitions and supplies needed for the war effort. So what they have to do is figure out where else can we find people to hold these jobs and for the first time ever, positions for africanamericans in northern industry begin to become available and so theres now a reason to move to the north, to move these cities because there are jobs. American history tv all weekend, every weekend only on cspan3. Next, governor Jerry Mcauliffe on what virginia is doing to