Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor's Workforce Protections Subcommittee held a hearing entitled Strengthening the Safety Net for Injured Workers. The hearing included testimony from Thomas M. Costa, the director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security for Government Accountability Office, and Christopher J. Godfrey, the director of the Department of Labor's (DOL) Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP).

The OWCP currently administers four federal workers compensation programs: Federal Employees, Black Lung Benefits, Longshore and Harbor Workers, and Nuclear Energy Workers. The hearing primarily focused on congressional efforts to strengthen these programs.

However, the hearing also touched on DOL's authority to reinstitute monitoring and reporting on the adequacy of state workers comp programs. Following a 1972 report by the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws, DOL issued an annual report assessing the adequacy of benefits against 19 “essential" benchmarks, but it ceased doing so in 2004. In 2015, DOL issued a report that urged the DOL to resume monitoring state workers comp programs, but the Trump administration declined to do so.

The issue has gained some traction with congressional Democrats as earlier versions of the Build Back Better (BBB) reconciliation package included language that would have given the DOL the authority to “monitor state workers compensation programs." The Big “I" and others in the insurance industry advocated against the inclusion of the language and it was taken out of the most recent BBB text, which passed the House in November.

Wyatt Stewart is Big “I" assistant vice president of federal government affairs.