Alexander Acosta, President Trump’s nominee to head the Labor Department, faced skeptical questioning from Democrats during his first Senate hearing Wednesday but appeared to take no major blows to his chances for confirmation.
The touchiest moment came when Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., asked about a Wednesday story in the Washington Post regarding Acosta’s role when he was U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida in the 2008 prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire charged with having sex with underage women. The article quoted some involved in the prosecution saying that Epstein got off too easy because Acosta cut a deal with him.
Acosta, the dean of Florida International University Law School, responded that the deal resulted in Epstein receiving a two-year prison sentence, being registered as a sex offender and left him open to civil suits from victims in the case. He argued that, given the evidence they had at the time, it was a good outcome.
“Was that [deal] the consensus decision in your office?” Kaine asked.
“It was a broadly held decision,” Acosta replied.
Several senators asked him how he would handle Trump’s proposed federal budget. “Do you accept a 20 percent cut in the budget?” asked Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. Acosta responded that he would not cut across the board but would examine individual programs to see which are least effective and therefore could be cut.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pressed Acosta on whether he would enforce a department rule issued last year on silica exposure. The rule has been challenged in court, though a judge upheld it last month. Acosta was noncommittal in his response, saying he had not had time to examine the legal status of it. That frustrated the senator.
“You have had two weeks to consider this,” Warren said, pointing out she asked him about it during a private meeting in her office.
Several lawmakers asked Acosta if he would support the Labor Department’s rule, announced that year, that workers must receive $47,000 annually before they can be exempted from federal overtime rules on Dec. 1, up from the previous threshold of $23,000. A Texas judge threw out the rule last year and the issue is still in court.
Acosta indicated that he thought the rate should be higher than $23,000 but that raising it to that $47,000 level caused a “stress on the system.” The question of where the rate should be was a “very difficult decision,” he said.
