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TheAGC Financial Issues Committee (FIC) Summer Meeting will be held June 8-9, 2015 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, CO. The meeting is geared toward member company AGC member company CFOs, Treasurers, Finance Directors, Controllers, Tax Directors and other senior accounting professionals. Members have an opportunity to learn as well as formulate positions on tax and accounting matters that directly affect the bottom line and operations of AGC member companies of all sizes and specialties. Current FIF projects include helping construction companies to prepare for the new Revenue Recognition Accounting Standard Update.

This week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) passed their fiscal year 2016 funding bill.  The bill includes funding for the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other related agencies.

This week, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit held a hearing that looked at the role of federal regulations as it pertains to Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety, including Hours of Service regulations.  AGC submitted a statement outlining our transportation reauthorization priorities on issues affecting the construction industry under the jurisdiction of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

For the first time since 2010, the House and Senate have reached agreement on a joint budget resolution. The resolution would cut $5.3 trillion from the budget to balance federal receipts and expenditures over nine years.  The majority of those cuts would come from mandatory entitlement programs such as Medicare. As expected, the discretionary spending in 2016 will be at the current budget cap levels of $1.016 trillion.

 On April 29, AGC CEO Stephen Sandherr testified during a hearing held by the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions on ways to further strengthen the multiemployer pension system. The bipartisan, noncontroversial hearing focused on the recommendations outlined in the joint labor-management proposal, Solutions Not Bailouts, to create a new “composite” type of multiemployer benefit plan that is distinct from either defined-benefit or defined-contribution plans. The new plan design was not included in last year’s bill that overhauled much of the multiemployer system, the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, which tracked other policy recommendations from Solutions Not Bailouts.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) are close to finalizing their proposed rule redefining "waters of the U.S." and making many more areas subject to federal control. More federal control would require nearly all construction sites to obtain often unnecessary Clean Water Act permits. The vast majority of new areas covered by these rules are currently protected by state and local governments so any increase to overall water quality are questionable.

On April 22, the House Appropriations Committee approved by unanimous voice vote a funding bill that would significantly increase funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works Program in fiscal year 2016 as compared to the president’s budget proposal. The Energy and Water Development appropriations bill would provide $5.597 billion to the Civil Works Program in FY 2016; that’s $864.75 million more than the president requested in his budget proposal and $142.25 million above the FY 2015 funding levels. The bill: (1) increases the president’s proposed construction account funding level by about 40 percent to $1.631 billion; (2) increases the operations and maintenance account funding level to $3.058 billion—the most ever and about $350 million more than the president requested; and (3) increases funding out of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to $1.178 billion—the highest ever—and increases spending from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund to $340 million—which is reportedly all of the estimated revenues expected to flow into the fund this year.

Over the last year, the federal government has issued a host of new regulations impacting your construction business. Do you know about those regulations? Is your company already in compliance with them or properly preparing? Want to learn from construction law experts? Register for the Federal Contractors Conference todaywhile space is still available!

In just five weeks, on May 31, highway and transit program authorization ends. Even with an extension of authorization, additional revenue is needed in the HTF by mid-summer or the Department of Transportation (DOT) will have to implement “cash management” practices which will result in slow or reduced reimbursements to states for on-going construction projects. Several states have cancelled contract lettings or reduced the number of projects in the lettings because of this uncertainty. Additionally, feedback from speakers and Hill visits at last week’s Transportation Construction Coalition Fly-In indicate that it is unlikely that Congress will be able to pass legislation before the deadline and yet another short-term extension will be necessary — the thirteenth short-term extension in the past five years.

This week, House leadership named five Republicans and three Democrats to the budget conference panel. Senate leaders appointed the entire membership of the Senate Budget Committee as conferees on the FY 2016 budget resolution, 12 Republicans, eight Democrats and two Independents.