A Texas judge on Tuesday blocked President Obama’s new rule intended to force companies to pay workers more overtime, agreeing with businesses that the administration overstepped its authority and that only Congress could approve such an expansion of the federal overtime law.

Business groups cheered the emergency injunction for the expansion, which was scheduled to start Dec. 1. “This is a victory for small business owners and should give them some breathing room until the case can be properly adjudicated,” said Juanita Duggan, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business trade group that opposed the rule.