Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough

In Washington this week, the battle over which political party gets coal in their stockings played
out between the House, Senate, and the White House. Facing a December 31 deadline, the
Senate passed a two-month extension of this year’s temporary payroll tax holiday,
unemployment benefits, and a provision stopping pay reductions for doctors who accept
Medicare. House Republicans insisted that a payroll tax rate be set for an entire year and refused
to pass the Senate measure. Instead, House Speaker John Boehner wants to conference the
House-passed year-long payroll tax cut with the Senate measure. Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-NV) is refusing to call the Senate back into session and the result is a standoff where the
President is siding with Senate Democrats.

To complicate matters, payroll service companies are worried that a two-month payroll tax
holiday extension may prove to be unworkable. On Monday, the National Payroll Reporting
Consortium (NPRC), whose members provide payroll processing services for one-third of the
private sector, wrote to Congress to explain that changes to payroll taxes are complicated and
take time to implement correctly (three months). NPRC’s concerns cast doubt on how a payroll
tax holiday can be extended quickly or retroactively without proving more costly and time
consuming for small business owners who ultimately are responsible for deducting the correct
amount of Social Security taxes from their employees’ paychecks.

On Monday, a federal judge in Washington asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
to delay enforcement of a rule that requires employers to display posters in the workplace that
tell employees how to unionize. The request by U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson came after
hearing arguments in a challenge to the rule by the National Federation of Independent Business
(NFIB) and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). The poster requirement
becomes effective January 31, 2012.

EPA announced new regulations on coal-fired power plants yesterday, placing the first-ever
limits on mercury emissions. Industry has waged a long fight against the “Utility MACT”
standard, arguing that the rules will raise energy prices and force some utilities to close, resulting
in 1.4 million jobs lost by 2020. Environmental groups claimed victory and public health
advocates claim the cleaner air from new standards will prevent 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700
heart attacks and 130,000 cases of childhood asthma. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson
highlighted those statistics when she announced the new standards at an event staged in a
Washington, D.C. children’s hospital.