News
ACEC thanks its members who have been working with us to build support for the bipartisan legislation to repeal the R&D amortization requirement (H.R. 2673/S. 866). Those efforts are bearing fruit as there are six new cosponsors of H.R. 2673, with around 20 Republicans on the wait list until additional Democrats sign on. It’s often the case that congressional staff wait to have these discussions until their boss returns to Washington, so we will continue pushing and hope to see the cosponsor lists grow in September when Congress reconvenes.
We are also working with the House Ways and Means Committee to build support for moving its economic package — which includes the provision delaying the R&D amortization requirement until 2026 — to the House floor as soon as possible. Floor time will be limited in September due to the end of the federal government’s fiscal year and the threat of a government shutdown, but we are pushing for the economic package to be a priority.
Separately, we want to inform our members that this morning, the Department of Labor released a proposed rule to update the salary threshold for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. DOL also released a set of FAQs about the proposed rule.
Key proposed changes include:
- Increasing the salary threshold below which employees must be paid time and a half for any hours in excess of 40 worked in a week from the current level of $684 weekly/$35,568 annually to $1,059 weekly/$55,068 annually.
- Increasing the highly-compensated employee threshold to $143,988.
- Including a mechanism to automatically update the salary threshold every three years (NOTE: the 2016 final overtime pay rule also included a mechanism to update the salary threshold every three years automatically, and this was the basis on which the rule was overturned in court because the FLSA statute does not give DOL that authority).
- No proposed changes to the duties test for exempt employees.
There is a 60-day comment period, and ACEC will submit comments.
Date
August 30, 2023
Category
ACEC NEWS, ACEC NEWS / ADVOCACY