The Office of Management and Budget is meeting with several groups, fueling speculation that its approval of the Labor Department's plan to delay its fiduciary rule is coming as soon as this week.
The OMB scheduled a 2 p.m. meeting Tuesday with AARP to discuss the delay of Labor's fiduciary rule implementation. On Wednesday afternoon, it is scheduled to meet with Better Markets, which supports more regulations on Wall Street, and Siegel Public Affairs, a consultant to local government groups and nonprofits.
Speculation is that Labor could file this week, after OMB approval, the much-anticipated 180-day delay of the rule's April 10 compliance date, which will appear in the Federal Register.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Tuesday that the nomination of R. Alexander Acosta, law dean at the public Florida International University, as President Donald Trump's new Labor secretary "is off to a good start because he's already been confirmed by the Senate three times."
It's been only two weeks since Labor filed with OMB to delay the fiduciary rule's compliance date via a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
Because the proposed rulemaking is "marked as not economically significant may account for why OMB could review it quickly," Kristina Zanotti, a partner at K&L Gates in Washington, said in a Tuesday interview with ThinkAdvisor. Any notice would simply likely be a delay of the rule's compliance date, she added.
"Word is OMB could approve this week, but the proposed regulation won't be published till next week," said another attorney.
OMB also just recently got a new director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C.
Once OMB releases DOL's proposal to the public in the Federal Register, "we will know the length of the delay of the rule's applicability date and whether stakeholders will have an opportunity to provide comments before or after the delay is effective," Zanotti along with her colleagues wrote in a recent client alert.
The question remains as to whether Labor's proposal at OMB is a proposed rule or an interim final rule.
