On Jan. 31., President Trump issued the “Strengthening Buy American Preferences for Infrastructure Projects” Executive Order. The order calls on federal agencies to encourage recipients of new Federal financial assistance awards to use—to the greatest extent practicable—iron and aluminum as well as steel, cement, and other manufactured products produced in the U.S. in every contract, subcontract, purchase order, or sub-award. AGC will provide more details on this executive order after further review.

For more information, contact Jimmy Christianson at [email protected] or (703) 837-5325. 

On Jan. 23, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published the annual penalty adjustments for each agency, including OSHA, as required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act. The Inflation Adjustment Act requires the Department to annually adjust its civil money penalty levels for inflation no later than January 15 of each year. The new penalty levels will apply to penalties assessed after January 23, 2019.  The new penalties amount to an increase of approximately 2.5% over the 2018 penalty levels. The table below shows the new maximum penalties for OSHA.

In Line with AGC Recommendations
On Jan. 25, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published its final rule amending the recordkeeping regulation by rescinding—in line with AGC recommendations—the requirement for establishments with 250 or more employees to electronically submit information from OSHA Forms 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) and 301 (Injuries and Illnesses Incident Report). AGC called for this amendment because (1) information in the Form 301 could lead to the public disclosure of individual employees’ identity and private health information; and (2) data included in the forms could unfairly characterize a construction contractor’s safety and health record. These establishments will continue to submit information from their OSHA Form 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) as has been required in 2017 and 2018.
For more information, please contact Kevin Cannon at (703)837-5410 or [email protected]. 

Are you an environmental professional working at a general construction firm? Join your peers at the next AGC In-House Environmental Managers (IHEM) meeting on Feb. 20, 2019, at AGC’s Headquarters in Arlington, VA. The IHEM meeting creates a forum for greater peer-to-peer learning and interaction by facilitating a series of moderated roundtable discussions. You choose the topics in advance and then spend the day sharing first-hand experiences and discussing solutions to the challenges on your to-do lists. Visit the meeting site to register today.
Registration is open to professionals working in-house on environmental issues at general construction firms. To ensure active discussion/participation, space for this meeting is limited.  The registration fee of $199 covers breakfast items, lunch, and a reception. AGC has booked a room block with breakfast included at the Hyatt Place Arlington/Courthouse Plaza for $189 per night (plus tax and fees). Click here to book your hotel room online.
For more information, contact Melinda Tomaino at [email protected] or (703) 837-5401.

AGC called upon all members of the new Congress to recognize the important voice employers have in debates about reforming our nation's health care system. Employer-sponsored coverage insures over 181 million American lives and has been the backbone of the U.S. health system for nearly eight decades. AGC believes that benefit offerings and coverage plans in the employer-sponsored system are as diverse as employers themselves and that there is no one-size-fits-all employer plan.
Specifically, AGC called on Congress to preserve the current tax treatment of employer-sponsored coverage, promote innovations and diversity of plan designs and offerings for employers, provide employers with compliance relief from burdensome regulations, repeal the Affordable Care Act taxes on employer-sponsored coverage, and protect ERISA.
For more information, contact Jim Young at [email protected] or 202-547-0133 or Claiborne Guy at [email protected] or 703-837-5382.

Address to Congress on Hold Due to Partial Shutdown
AGC CEO Steve Sandherr earlier this month urged President Trump to offer bipartisan solutions to addressing our nation’s infrastructure—including fixing the Highway Trust Fund—and workforce skills gap.  Exactly when the President delivers the State of the Union remans in flux as he is thus far honoring Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) request to postpone the speech until the partial government shutdown has ended. In the meantime business continues, as it was reported earlier this week that the president huddled with about 20 officials—including Vice President Pence, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao—to discuss a potential infrastructure plan and whether to include details of it in the State of the Union address.
AGC is encouraged by news of such a discussion and will continue to urge the president to include infrastructure and workforce in the State of the Union, while working with Congress to move forward on both issues.
For more information, contact Sean O’Neill at [email protected] or (202) 547-8892.

On Jan. 18, the Treasury Department issued final regulations on the “Section 199A deduction” (often called the pass-through business deduction or the qualified business income deduction). The deduction, which provided tax relief for construction firms organized as pass-through entities (as opposed to those organized as C-Corporations, whose tax rate was reduced to 21 percent), allows those businesses that qualify to deduct 20 percent of their qualified business income until the end of 2026, when the provision expires. In the final regulations, Treasury agreed to some of AGC's recommendations, and disagreed with others. Overall, AGC feels confident that construction firms will have wide use of the new deduction, allowing pass-through firms to receive significant tax relief when they file their taxes later this year. A comprehensive summary of the regulations can be found here.
For additional information, please contact Matthew Turkstra at [email protected] pr (202) 547-4733.

On Jan. 24, two bills that would end the partial government shutdown failed to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance in the Senate.  The first bill—failing on a 52-44 vote—would have funded currently shutdown federal agencies for three weeks to allow federal workers to receive their last two paychecks while Congress and the White House continued negotiations on a permanent solution. The AGC-backed second bill—failing on a 50-47 vote—would have: (1) extended work authorizations for three years for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) holders, which include approximately 120,000 construction workers; (2) funded approximately $7 billion in disaster-aid construction project funding; (3) provided a $10 billion increase over FY 2017 annual funding levels for federal infrastructure programs, including $5.3 billion more for highways, $1 billion more transit, and $500 million more for airports; and (4) provided $5.7 billion for border security infrastructure.
For more information, contact Jimmy Christianson at [email protected] or (703) 837-5325.

Are you an environmental professional working at a general construction firm? Join your peers at the next AGC In-House Environmental Managers (IHEM) meeting on Feb. 20, 2019, at AGC’s Headquarters in Arlington, VA. The IHEM meeting creates a forum for greater peer-to-peer learning and interaction by facilitating a series of moderated roundtable discussions. You choose the topics in advance and then spend the day sharing first-hand experiences and discussing solutions to the challenges on your to-do lists. Visit the meeting site to register today.
Registration is open to professionals working in-house on environmental issues at general construction firms. To ensure active discussion/participation, space for this meeting is limited.  The registration fee of $199 covers breakfast items, lunch, and a reception. AGC has booked a room block with breakfast included at the Hyatt Place Arlington/Courthouse Plaza for $189 per night (plus tax and fees). Click here to book your hotel room online.
For more information, contact Melinda Tomaino at [email protected] or (703) 837-5401.

On January 10-11, construction company CFO’s and other senior accounting and tax professionals attended the AGC Financial Issues Committee (FIC) Winter Meeting in Miami, FL. Committee members heard a legislative update from Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), and discussed the tax reform legislation its impact on the 2019 tax filing season for the construction industry.
The group also heard a presentation from K.P. Reddy, founder of a venture capital fund focused on emerging technologies, many of which are in construction; received an update on the implementation of new accounting standards from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB); and heard from AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson about the economic outlook for construction.
The FIC Summer 2019 Meeting will be held June 10-11 at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, DC. Meeting and hotel information will be circulated in the coming months.
For more information, contact Matt Turkstra at [email protected] or (202) 547-4733.