Bye-Bye American Pie: OFCCP to Slip Beneath the Waves on September 30, 2025

OutSolve has invited John C. Fox, Esq. as a guest blogger providing legal insights on EEO and compliance issues. The views expressed in his posts are his and do not reflect the viewpoint of OutSolve or its employees. 

Last week I counted only five people at OFCCP Headquarters: three career federal OFCCP employees and two political appointees supervising the agency’s shutdown and eventual dissolution. 

While I predicted this result on January 23rd of this year, OFCCP’s FY 2026 Congressional Budget Justification, the tool federal agencies annually create and publish to Congress and the public setting out their Budget request for the upcoming Fiscal Year (FY 2026 in this case), made OFCCP’s imminent total closure official: 

p.1: “No appropriations language is proposed.” (the only language on the page) 

p.2: “No appropriations language is proposed.  The FY 2026 Budget proposes to eliminate OFCCP.  Executive Order (EO) 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, rescinded EO 11246, permanently removing the primary basis for OFCCP’s enforcement authority and program work. The Budget transfers enforcement of the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 to the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), and enforcement of Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).” 

EDITOR’S NOTE. Please re-read the last sentence, above, which most other commentators have overlooked: USDOL feels that the Budget itself is the Congressional statute giving the Secretary of Labor the legal authority to transfer USDOL’s Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act authority to the EEOC and away from OFCCP. The Secretary did not/does not need Congressional authority to relocate the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA) authority within USDOL to the Department’s Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS...one of Washington DC’s greatest acronyms, ever!). 

In 1974, Congress enacted VEVRAA and delegated authority to “The Secretary of Labor” to implement it within USDOL, in the Secretary’s discretion. Congress did NOT designate OFCCP as VEVRAA’s host sub agency within USDOL to be its permanent home. 

The federal Fiscal Year is, of course, October 1 of each year to and through the following September 30 of each year. FY 2026 thus begins in less than four months… on October 1, 2025.  Tuesday, September 30,, 2025 will therefore be the last day OFCCP remains in existence after what will be five days short of a 60-year run: October 5, 1965 to September 30, 2025. 

VEVRAA’s New Life at VETS 

The VETS Budget Justification for FY 2026 discusses its absorption of OFCCP’s VEVRAA program at pages 3, 5-7: 

p.3: “Request: The President’s Budget proposes to eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and transfer its statutory program areas to other agencies. Executive Order (EO) 14173’s rescission of EO 11246 and express prohibition of core OFCCP oversight activities permanently removes most of OFCCP’s enforcement authority and program work.  The initiative is for VETS to absorb VEVRAA compliance duties from OFCCP. The Budget requests $7,000,000 for VETS to administer and enforce VEVRAA employment protections that make it unlawful for contractors and subcontractors doing business with the Federal government to discriminate against veterans under section 4212 of title 38, United States Code.” 

“Justification”: This [OFCCP VEVRAA absorption] initiative aims to advance the Secretary’s objective to integrate disparate veterans’ enforcement activities into a unified agency structure. It will enhance operational efficiency, optimize resource allocation, and improve service delivery to our stakeholders.”  

p.5-7: VETS seeks budget authority of $7Million to absorb and enforce OFCCP’s VEVRAA enforcement program. That is budget enough, VETS calculates, to increase its headcount by 17 employees to staff its soon to be inherited VEVRAA program.  

Section 503’s New Life at the EEOC 

We do not know. The EEOC FY2026 Budget Justification is entirely silent as to any transition of Section 503 legal authority to the Commission. The Congressional decision to use the Budget to authorize the Secretary of Labor’s transfer of Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 legal authority to the EEOC was obviously made at the VERY last minute before that “big, beautiful bill” (“BBB”) went public. 

What Happens If This Budget Bill Does Not Pass the Senate and/or Reconciliation Thereafter with the House?  

The House and the Senate would then start over to draft a new budget bill. However, presumably the relatively “small fry” issues of Section 503’s physical location within the Executive Branch of Government is probably so lacking in general interest that not a single House Member or Senator would likely notice or care about this agency “architecture” issue. So, if turmoil in the Senate boils over, and the BBB becomes less “beautiful” and less “big,” the replacement bill would likely just roll the existing Section 503 transfer language into it without anyone caring, noticing, or resisting. The House and Senate have MUCH bigger “fish to fry” than to worry about where Section 503 is located among the over 430 federal agencies and sub-agencies in the federal government solar system.  

Indeed, the EEOC has since 1992 carried over 99% of the responsibility for disability discrimination issues at the federal level via various Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with OFCCP.  MOUs over the decades have caused OFCCP to refer all but a handful of disability discrimination claims and investigations to the EEOC to prosecute pursuant to the Commission’s Americans with Disability Act legal authority. There is very little left of Section 503 for OFCCP to refer/transfer to the EEOC other than its debarment sanction authority. Ho-Hum. This issue would be greeted by about the same level of enthusiasm as occurred when discussion arose about moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.