The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit has partly stayed enforcement of President Joe Biden’s executive order that requires that all federal contractors be paid a $15-per-hour minimum wage. The ruling came Feb. 17 in a lawsuit brought by Colorado-based adventure tour operator Duke Bradford, who founded Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA) in 1998. Currently, the company has 250 employees who provide outdoor experiences throughout the year, including guided, multi-day river rafting wilderness trips. Because Colorado’s rivers go through federal land, rafting businesses such as AVA require special use permits from the federal government. The businesses pay the government a percentage of service fees and receive an annual lease to conduct rafting trips on lands owned or managed by the federal government. Bradford claims that the federal minimum wage mandate—which would break his company—shouldn’t apply to his company because it is not, nor has it ever been, a federal …