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Administration Continues to Focus on Infrastructure Plan

On two separate occasions this week, President Trump indicated that he intends to accelerate the time frame in which he will propose his $1 trillion dollar infrastructure plan.  Additionally, Transportation Secretary Chao briefed a small group of Republican House Members on an infrastructure package that may be moving as soon as the middle of May.  Neither the President nor Secretary Chao provided any level of detail other than that the plan will rely on both private and public funds and will cut red tape that contributes to a delay in infrastructure projects.
However, the timing for any infrastructure plan remains in flux.  It appears that the Administration is moving forward sooner than previously thought and the House and Senate Committees have held several infrastructure-related hearings.  AGC will continue to work with both the Administration and Congress to ensure that the promise of a $1 trillion infrastructure package that provides direct federal spending, increased private sector investment and cuts red tape is kept.
For more information, contact Sean O’Neill at [email protected] or (202) 547-8892.

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AGC, Along with National Partners, Launch National Work Zone Awareness Week

On Tuesday, April 4, AGC of America staff along with the AGC Highway and Transportation Division chairman, Don Diederich, joined national partners from the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Labor, and the Maryland Department of Transportation to launch the 2017 National Work Zone Awareness Week.  The event, which runs from April 3-7, 2017, raises awareness that – for the safety of everyone – work zones require drivers to remain focused and stay alert.  According to the latest data available, approximately 700 fatalities occurred in highway work zones in 2015 with 130 being workers.
For more information, contact Kevin Cannon at [email protected] or (703) 837-5410.

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“Blacklisting” Rule Finally Dies, Marking Big Win for AGC Members 

Thanks in part to AGC’s advocacy efforts, contractors are enjoying a major victory today:  permanent nullification of regulations implementing President Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order, often referred to as the “blacklisting” rule.  On March 27, President Trump signed into law a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) by which Congress expressed disapproval of the rule and stripped it of all force and effect.
Under the blacklisting rule, both prime and subcontractors were required to report violations and alleged violations of 14 federal labor laws and “equivalent” state labor laws during the previous three years, and again every six months, on federal contracts over $500,000.  Prime contractors were also responsible for evaluating the labor law violations of subcontractors at all tiers.  A single alleged violation could have led a contracting officer to remove a contractor from an ongoing project or to deny to a contractor the right to compete for a contract.  The rule also required contractors to provide certain pay information to employees and independent contractors, and it limited the use of mandatory arbitration of employment disputes.  All but the paycheck transparency provisions had been on temporary hold since a federal court issued preliminary injunction in October 2016.
“To be clear, there should be no place in federal contracting for unsafe or unscrupulous firms.  Yet the former president’s measure did nothing to reform or improve the existing suspension and debarment process,” said AGC Chief Executive Officer Steve Sandherr.  “Instead, it created a new layer of bureaucracy that would have given federal officials broad discretion to punish construction firms based on any number of unsubstantiated allegations without establishing a process for those firms to defend themselves.  That is why the Associated General Contractors worked so aggressively to push for passage of today’s repeal measure.”
The CRA enables Congress to invalidate recently-issued federal agency regulations under certain circumstances.  Once Congress passes a joint resolution under the CRA and the president signs it into law, federal agencies may not issue the same, or a substantially similar, regulation absent authorization from Congress.  Accordingly, Congress’s and the president’s use of the CRA to “kill” the blacklisting rule is considered a better outcome than the President simply withdrawing the executive order and regulations.  Enactment of the present resolution also renders continued litigation over the rule moot.
Unwinding the paycheck transparency requirements that were already in effect at the time president Trump signed the resolution may take time, and some federal contracting officers may not be aware of this development.  Contractors responding to a request for proposal that includes FAR 52.22-60, Paycheck Transparency (Executive Order 13673), should ask the contracting officer to remove the provision in light of this development.  Contractors already performing work on a contract that incorporates FAR 52.222-60 should consider evaluating the burden of continued compliance, and, if significant, ask the contracting officer to remove the clause by modification.
For more information, contact Jimmy Christianson at 703-837-5325 or [email protected] or Denise Gold at 703-837-5326 or [email protected].

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New Executive Order Scraps Several Permitting Review Hurdles

On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed a new executive order that rescinds, as recommended by AGC, several Obama administration environmental review/permitting hurdles that could have delayed construction projects. The order, entitled “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth,” rescinds Council on Environmental Quality guidance that required federal agencies to quantify and additionally consider direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions for construction projects during the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, for which environmental impact statements already take 4.6 years on average to complete. The order also rescinds an Obama presidential memoranda that created sweeping new authority for several federal permitting agencies, establishing a preference for compensatory mitigation to restore, establish, or enhance the environment within the scope of a construction project where unavoidable adverse environmental impacts may occur.
The order notes that changing or rescinding some of these actions may involve additional notice and comment period to be consistent with the law, which will take time. It does not address how existing case law that upholds certain considerations of greenhouse gasses during NEPA review will continue to affect how agencies handle those impacts. AGC will follow up with additional analysis of the impact of this order on the construction industry.
For more information, contact Melinda Tomaino at (703) 837-5415 or [email protected].

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Legislation to Prohibit Government Mandated PLAs Advances in Congress 

Contact Your Members of Congress and the President
The AGC-supported “Fair and Open Competition Act” passed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week. The legislation would prohibit federal contracting agencies from mandating that contractors and unions enter project labor agreements (PLAs) on direct federal projects. In addition, the bill would preserve the right of contractors and unions to voluntarily negotiate and execute project labor agreements on federal projects, if they so choose. There is no timeline for if or when the full House would consider the legislation, or if the Senate would consider its companion bill. AGC is committed to full and open competition for all public projects and urged the Committee to support the legislation. Contact your members of Congress and urge them to support passage of the “Fair and Open Competition Act” and petition President Trump to repeal President Obama’s Government-Mandated PLA executive order.
On February 6, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13502, which encourages government agencies to use PLA’s in large-scale federal construction projects where the total cost to the government is $25 million or more. AGC strongly believes that the choice of whether to adopt a collective bargaining agreement should be left to the contractor-employers and their employees, and that choice should not be imposed as a condition to competing for, or performing on, a publicly funded project. Government mandates and preferences for PLAs can restrain competition, drive up costs, cause delays, lead to jobsite disputes, and disrupt local collective bargaining. In cases where use of a PLA would benefit a project, the construction contractors otherwise qualified to perform the work would be the first to recognize that fact and to adopt a PLA voluntarily.
For more information, contact Jim Young at [email protected] or (202) 547-0133.

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Infrastructure Funding Targeted for Reduction in President Trump’s Budget Outline

Tell your Senators and Representative to Maintain Funding for these Programs
President Trump recently released a budget outline to identify administration priorities for Fiscal Year 2018. This budget outline is a mixed bag for federal infrastructure accounts as it proposes to cut billions in federal spending from construction-related programs. Proposed cuts include: a $2.4 billion reduction for the Department of Transportation by eliminating the TIGER grant program and limiting funding for the transit new starts grant program, eliminating the Agriculture Department’s Water and Wastewater grant program funding of $498 million and eliminating the Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant funding of $3 billion. Contact your members of Congress and urge them to maintain funding for these critical infrastructure investment programs.
While we look forward to working with the administration on the president’s promised infrastructure investment initiative, in the meantime, AGC supports maintaining funding for existing infrastructure programs. Contact your senators and representatives to urge them to ignore Trump’s proposed cuts to infrastructure programs.
For more information, contact Sean O’Neill at [email protected] or (202) 547-8892.

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Congress Rolls Back Misguided OSHA Rule

Awaits President’s Signature
This week, the Senate followed the House in passing a bill that repeals the OSHA “Volks” Rule and it now heads to the president’s desk where he is expected to sign it into law. AGC led a lobbying effort in passing the bill and issued a statement after the vote that the bill will preserve worker safety while protecting the constitution and respecting court rulings.
At the heart of the Volks matter was an Obama Administration OSHA rule issued in December that exposed employers to unfair liability for honest and inadvertent paperwork mistakes related to recordkeeping. The rule extended the statute of limitations on recordkeeping violations from six months to five and a half years, and did nothing to improve the safety or health of a company’s workers. The rule was initially issued by OSHA to circumvent a court decision involving a construction company that challenged an OSHA citation for a recordkeeping violation issued beyond six months. Two federal courts have since rebuked OSHA’s theory for issuing recordkeeping citations after six months.
For more information, contact Jim Young at [email protected] or (202) 547-0133.

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Infrastructure Funding Targeted for Reduction in President Trump’s Budget Outline

Tell your Senators and Representative to Maintain Funding for these Programs
Last week, President Trump released a budget outline to identify administration priorities for Fiscal Year 2018. This budget outline is a mixed bag for federal infrastructure accounts as it proposes to cut billions in federal spending from construction-related programs. Proposed cuts include: a $2.4 billion reduction for the Department of Transportation by eliminating the TIGER grant program and limiting funding for the transit new starts grant program, eliminating the Agriculture Department’s Water and Wastewater grant program funding of $498 million and eliminating the Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant funding of $3 billion. Contact your members of Congress and urge them to maintain funding for these critical infrastructure investment programs.
While we look forward to working with the administration on the president’s promised infrastructure investment initiative, in the meantime, AGC supports maintaining funding for existing infrastructure programs. Contact your senators and representatives to urge them to ignore the cuts to infrastructure programs that were proposed in President Trump’s FY 2018 budget outline.
For more information, contact Sean O’Neill at [email protected] or (202) 547-8892.

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House Introduces AGC-Supported Gas Tax Bill

This week, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, Peter DeFazio (Ore), introduced the AGC-supported Investing in America: A Penny for Progress Act, which would provide approximately $500 billion – a 30 percent increase – in infrastructure investment for federal surface transportation programs. The bill finances these investments by authorizing Invest in America 30-year Treasury bonds, annually, through 2030. The bonds will be repaid through indexing federal gas and diesel taxes to the National Construction Cost Index and reduced motor fuel usage for the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. According to Rep DeFazio’s office, the bill is estimated to raise the gas and diesel takes by approximately 1 cent per year and includes a hard cap of 1.5 cents per year.  For more information on the bill and a full list of supporters, click here.
While AGC supports Rep DeFazio’s legislation, which addresses our surface transportation needs through 2030, we will continue to focus our efforts on providing  a permanent solution for the chronic Highway Trust Fund shortfall.
For more information, contact Sean O’Neill at [email protected] or (202) 547-8892.

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Ready to Comply with OSHA’s Silica Rule in June?

AGC Provides Educational Materials for Contractors
Beginning on June 23, 2017, contractors must comply with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s respirable crystalline standard for construction.  To help educate AGC members, AGC has developed the “Respirable Crystalline Silica in Construction” webpage designed to provide contractors with a better understanding of what is expected of them from OSHA.
The information on the page includes the following:


The standard – finalized on March 25, 2016 – provides a comprehensive and complex regulatory scheme for protecting construction workers from exposure to respirable crystalline silica containing dust.  The scope of the standard applies to all occupational exposures to respirable crystalline silica and significantly lowers the permissible exposure limit (PEL) from 250 micrograms/m3 to 50 micrograms/m3.  In addition to the new PEL, contractors will also have to comply with a host of ancillary provisions such as respiratory protection (when required by the standard), housekeeping, medical surveillance, and recordkeeping.
AGC staff will continue to develop additional materials so check back periodically to see what’s new.
For more information, contact Kevin Cannon at [email protected] or (703) 837-5410. 

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