If this new piece of legislation were to pass, employers wouldn’t have to take orders from the Department of Labor (DOL) any more.
Instead, they’d be dealing with a new federal agency — the Department of Commerce and the Workforce (DOCW).
Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) just introduced a bill that looks to consolidate the DOL and the Department of Commerce into the DOCW.
The reasoning behind the bill: By eliminating the overlapping functions of the two existing agencies government spending will decrease.
Burr said in a recent release this bill would begin to execute a proposal President Obama floated in his last State of the Union address that certain federal agencies be merged and consolidated.
The new DOCW would perform all the functions the two agencies are currently responsible for.
It would also take the recommendations of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as to which ineffective or duplicate programs to eliminate.
The merger between the DOL and Department of Commerce wouldn’t spark any changes to existing policies.
Co-sponsoring the bill were senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Thune (R-SD), Mike Lee (R-UT), John McCain (R-AZ), and Dan Coats (R-IN).
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