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That’s a wrap on Roofing Day in D.C. 2026!
On April 14-15, roofing professionals from across the U.S. gathered in Washington, D.C., to advocate with one voice in support of solutions to workforce challenges and policies to address the affordable housing crisis. Nearly 200 attendees from 33 different states met with 158 House and Senate offices to share our key policy issues regarding ways we can get more participants interested in the roofing industry’s fulfilling work and how roofing industry employers play an integral part in providing safe, affordable housing for all Americans. A special thank you to our sponsors for making this event a huge success! To learn more about the only advocacy event dedicated solely to the roofing industry, please visit www.nrca.net/roofingday.
Secretary of Labor Chavez-DeRemer resigns
On April 20, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer submitted her resignation in the midst of an investigation of alleged professional misconduct by the Department of Labor’s inspector general during her 14 months in office. Chavez-DeRemer had been selected for the cabinet post by President Trump after serving one term in the House representing Oregon’s 1st Congressional District. She was one of the few Trump nominees to receive substantial bipartisan support in her confirmation by the Senate in early 2025 given her close ties to labor organizations. During her brief tenure leading the agency, the department pursued a deregulatory agenda with an emphasis on expanding and clarifying compliance assistance for employers that largely has been well-received by the business community.
With Chavez-DeRemer’s departure, Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling has assumed the role of acting secretary of labor and can serve in that position indefinitely. Sonderling has extensive experience as a labor and employment attorney in the private sector and served as deputy secretary of labor and acting administrator at DOL’s Wage and Hour Division during the first Trump administration. He is widely regarded as a strong ally of the employer community and was actively involved in day-to-day management of the agency under Chavez-DeRemer. It is unclear who President Trump may nominate to replace Chavez-DeRemer, but former Virginia governor Glenn Younkin has been mentioned for the role. However, any nominee will face a challenging confirmation battle in the closely divided Senate.
House committee approves NRCA-endorsed legislation on Corporate Transparency Act
On April 21, the House Committee on Financial Services approved H.R. 425, the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act, led by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) and co-sponsored by 191 House members, along with an amendment requiring the existing beneficial ownership database be purged within 90 days. These measures would ensure the Corporate Transparency Act is limited to foreign business owners only while protecting the personal information of the millions of small-business owners who already reported.
The Corporate Transparency Act was originally passed by Congress as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 to crack down on the illicit activities of shell companies. NRCA has long opposed the law because it would require small-business owners—who pose no risk to national security—to provide sensitive private data to the federal government under the guise of combatting illicit finance.
With committee approval, the next step in the legislative process is for the modified version of H.R. 425 to be considered by the full House. NRCA will continue working with lawmakers to finalize a permanent fix to the Corporate Transparency Act during the remainder of this session.
House approves legislation to reinstate TPS for Haiti
The House passed H.R. 1689, legislation to direct the Trump administration to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haiti, on a bipartisan vote of 224-204, with 10 Republicans and 1 Independent joining all Democrats in approving the measure. The House vote came after four Republicans broke from party leaders to join Democrats in signing a rarely used Discharge Petition to force the bill out of committee and brought to the floor for a vote. NRCA supports H.R. 1689 and sent a letter to House members in support of the legislation, which now moves to the Senate, where it faces an uphill battle to achieve the 60 votes needed for approval. Nevertheless, House passage with bipartisan support on any immigration-related legislation is significant.
TPS was enacted by Congress in 1990 to allow qualifying individuals to live and work in the U.S. legally because of wars, natural disasters and other humanitarian conditions in their home country. In 2025, the Department of Homeland Security terminated TPS for about 350,000 individuals from Haiti, many of whom have been working legally in the roofing industry for years, ruling that conditions in Haiti have sufficiently improved to end the TPS designation. In February, a U.S. district court ruled that DHS’s termination was unlawful and postponed the termination, and the Supreme Court has agreed to review the decision upon the Trump administration’s appeal of the lower court decision. A decision from the Supreme Court is likely to be handed down by the summer.
House Committee approves workforce training reform legislation
The House Education and Workforce Committee voted to approve a new version of A Stronger Workforce for America Act (H.R. 8210), legislation to reauthorize and reform existing workforce training programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The new bill was introduced recently by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, and has many of the same provisions as similar legislation by the same name from the 118th Congress (H.R. 6655) that NRCA supported. If enacted, this legislation would provide more effective workforce development tools for roofing and other industries; it was nearly approved by Congress in 2024.
Although H.R. 6655 had strong bipartisan support during the previous Congress, H.R. 8210 has yet to garner bipartisan support given one major difference from the previous version. H.R. 8210 would codify the transfer of implementation of Title II of WIOA (Adult Education and Literacy functions) from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor—a component of the Trump administration’s efforts to close the Department of Education that Democrats in Congress strongly oppose. Because of this controversial provision, the bill was approved by the committee on a straight party-line vote of 19-14, with all Republicans supporting and all Democrats opposing. Given the partisan division over the new bill, it may pass the full House later this year but has little chance to pass the Senate in its current form.
NRCA will continue working to encourage lawmakers to bridge their partisan differences and move forward on a bipartisan WIOA reform bill. NRCA also has met with Henry Mack, assistant secretary of labor for the Employment and Training Administration, and had a constructive discussion about how to work on an administrative basis to improve the operation of workforce training programs to make them more responsive to industry workforce needs.
Federal Form I-9 inspection guidance updated
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has updated its Form 1-9 compliance guidance to expand the categories of errors classified as substantive violations and potentially increasing employer liability. The update also reduces the availability of corrective measures during a Form I-9 inspection. Form I-9 error classifications previously were governed by the 1997 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (then Immigration and Naturalization Service) Virtue Memorandum and subsequent agency guidance. This memorandum distinguished between substantive violations, which are subject to monetary penalties, and technical or procedural violations, which employers could correct within a 10-day cure period, allowing them to remedy some common mistakes without penalty. View more information.
