Judge sets hearing for AEWR challenge

A federal court will consider the fate of Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) rules.

Following months of delays, a federal district judge has decided the next step in a National Council of Agricultural Employers’ (NCAE) yearslong battle for farmers’ and ranchers’ rights to make their own business decisions.

U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Honeywell in the Middle District of Florida set a date for oral arguments in NCAE’s motion for summary judgment challenging the legality of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) AEWR.

After receiving a third request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the court to issue a 90-day stay in the council’s litigation, Judge Honeywell denied the stay. The court noted that the “latest motion fails to demonstrate that an additional stay is appropriate at this time, particularly in light of plaintiffs’ allegations of ongoing harm,” according to a news release.

NCAE’s challenge of what NCAE characterizes as an unlawful rule began in April 2023 following the Biden Administration’s promulgation of the AEWR Final Rule in February 2023, according to the release.

“We are grateful to the court for disallowing unending delay tactics,” Michael Marsh, NCAE’s president and CEO, said in the release. “America’s agricultural community is being forced to foot-the-bill of this illegal wage rate with each passing pay period. America’s farmers and ranchers need relief and need it now.”

Oral arguments on NCAE’s motion for summary judgment on the AEWR rule are scheduled for July 1 in Federal District Court in Tampa, Florida.

“The overzealous Biden Administration’s DOL forced America’s farm and ranch families to pay this unlawful wage for years, costing them billions as our food production moves offshore at an alarming rate,” Marsh said in the release. “If the grocery-buying public wishes to find American-grown food on their grocery shelves, this regulation must be stopped.”

The deference the court afforded the DOL in finding the regulation could not be enjoined was overruled by the Supreme Court last term. NCAE remains hopeful the new administration will see the arguments made by the council and its colleagues and undo the “illegal wage-setting policy promulgated by Washington bureaucrats,” Marsh said in the release.