The future of a US Labor Department worker benefits advisory board hangs in the balance as the Trump administration fails to convene members who provide health and retirement policy recommendations to the agency.
The Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans, known as the ERISA Advisory Council, was established by statute that requires four meetings annually, yet it has not met since President Donald Trump took office. Several council recommendation documents from 2024 were kept for months from the council’s website, alarming lawmakers.
Two former department officials who are in contact with members of the bipartisan council told Bloomberg Law the group’s work is on an indefinite pause.
Aside from potentially violating the law that created the council, ex-officials and past council members said the 15-member body’s work recommending policy to the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration is invaluable and shouldn’t be eliminated.
It provides the government with important perspectives, ensuring various players affected by federal policy on workplace 401(k) and health insurance plans are equally represented in agency decisionmaking, they said.
“The council is made up of a diverse group of experts, because the law requires different constituencies are represented and puts limits on party registration,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a partner at Keller Rohrback LLP in Oakland, Calif., who recently ended a three-year term on the council. “This new administration clearly does not care about gathering facts and relying on expertise from people who are knowledgeable about their fields.”
The White House did not respond to Bloomberg Law requests for comment. The DOL did not provide comment.
Members of the council represent employee organizations, the general public, investment counselors and managers, actuaries, insurers, trusts, and employers. No more than eight of the 15 members can be registered to the same political party.
The external input the council provides is “invaluable” to agency officials who spend their time holed up in Washington office buildings, said Colleen Medill, an employee benefits professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Law and a member of the council from 2017 to 2019.
“Now, they’re not allowed to function,” said former Biden-era EBSA chief Lisa M. Gomez. “Their whole operation has been put on pause.”
Uncertainty Looms
Earlier this month, EBSA finally published complete recommendations that the council approved in December. Written testimony that had inexplicably been deleted from the council’s website after Trump’s inauguration also appeared back online.
Officials didn’t explain the six-month delay, but it came just a week after Democrats on Capitol Hill sent the agency a letter demanding information about the missing records. Trump officials, meanwhile, still haven’t scheduled any meetings for the council in 2025, even though past councils have usually had at least two meetings by the middle of the calendar year.
Five appointments former Biden administration Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su made to the council in the trailing days of the former president’s term also haven’t been added to council’s website.
“There’s too much evidence let alone the passage of time that this administration clearly knows about this advisory committee and they’re clearly choosing not to do anything about it,” said Ali Khawar, former deputy assistant secretary of EBSA.
Trump has shown an appetite for downsizing or eliminating federal advisory committees.
He signed an executive order in February directing White House policy advisers to identify committees “that should be terminated on the grounds that they are unnecessary.” During his first term in 2019, Trump signed a similar order instructing every US agency to slash a third of its advisory boards, although that doesn’t appear to have been fully implemented.
The council’s latest report that EBSA only recently made public recommended that the agency issue guidance for retirement plans choosing insurance products investors can be defaulted into when they start working for a company and join a plan.
The council also recommended that plans held to strict fiduciary standards improve disclosures about default insurance products and that preapproved funds be required for money exiting the closely regulated market under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Had former Vice President
The 2024 council also issued a report to improve regulation and boost patients’ awareness about their rights to appeal medical claims denials under their health plans.
Work the council did in 2022 to research cybersecurity protections in workplace benefit plans directly prompted EBSA to update its guidance in late 2024 to ensure it applied equally to health plans.
“In terms of the amount of brain power in that room at these meetings, it was truly remarkable,” said former council member Medill. “And I do think with this particular council, the top level people at the DOL were very appreciative of the work because otherwise you just could not get this kind of intense focus and access to such a high-powered group of people in the industry.”
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