Browse by Date - 201512

Passage Expected Before Christmas

On Wednesday, Congressional leaders released a $1.1 trillion omnibus appropriations bill that will fund federal agencies and programs for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2016.  Overall, the bill includes mostly good news for construction accounts, as many see increases compared to FY 2015 levels and others receive significantly smaller cuts than Congress initially wanted.  The omnibus bill provides nearly $121 billion for federal construction accounts as tracked by AGC.  This is an increase of approximately $8 billion from fiscal year 2015 and $15 billion less than the administration’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. To give time for passage of this final spending package, Congress passed another short-term funding bill—called a continuing resolution—that will fund the government through Dec. 22. The House is expected to pass the omnibus bill on Friday, with a vote in the Senate to follow shortly thereafter.

On Thursday, the House passed the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015 by a 318 to 109 vote, with three republicans voting against the measure and 77 democrats in favor.  The PATH Act renews all expired provisions in some form.  The bill makes certain tax incentives permanent, while proposing a two-year extension for others, and providing a one-year retrospective for 2015 and one-year prospective for 2016 for the remaining provisions. The Senate will receive the bill and likely vote on Friday, sending the tax package to the president’s desk – which he is expected to sign. To view a copy of the legislative text click here. Specifically the tax extender package includes the following AGC priorities:

On Wednesday, AGC provided commentary to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury Department officials during a public hearing on IRS’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [REG–136459–09] regarding the Section 199 domestic production activities deduction (DPAD). Specifically, the testimony given by Brian Lenihan, AGC’s Director of Tax and Fiscal Affairs addressed the definition of “substantial renovation” as well as the current administrablity of DPAD and proposed reasonability tests for contractors. The government panel consisted of IRS staff from Office of the Associate Chief Counsel: Paul Handleman, Branch Chief; James Holmes, Attorney with a focus on Pass-throughs and Special Industries; John Aramburu, Senior Counsel for Income Tax and Accounting; and Ken Buck, Tax Policy Advisor at Treasury.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), in response to a request from the top Republican on the Senate Environment Committee, concluded that several aspects of the social media and grassroots campaign undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) around the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rulemaking violated provisions of the laws designed to protect against undue agency influence on the rulemaking process.

The GOP presidential field took to a Las Vegas stage for their fifth and final debate of 2015 earlier this week.  Here are the winners and losers:   

Contact Your Senators & Ask Them to Support the FAST Act

This afternoon by a vote of 359-65 passed the conference report to HR. 22, the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which is the first long-term transportation bill in more than a decade.  The Senate is now expected to take up the FAST Act and, if they are successful in clearing potential procedural votes, they will vote on final passage later this evening.  Please visit Hardhats for Highways and urge them to support the FAST Act when it comes to the Senate floor for a vote.  Please also take a moment to thank your Representative for their support of the bill.  If the Senate is able to pass the bill this evening, it appears the president will sign it prior to the expiration of the current extension tomorrow.

Prior to Thanksgiving, the president signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2016 (NDAA Bill), which includes several AGC-backed federal procurement reform provisions that will help prevent individual surety fraud, allow joint ventures to submit individual businesses’ relevant past performance evaluations as part of their proposals—not merely the relevant past performance of the joint venture itself—and fix a recent court decision that would have required small business construction contractors to purchase all their materials and supplies from other small businesses.

Congress Drafting an End-of-Year Funding Bill

Last week, AGC sent a letter to congressional leaders and members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees detailing the construction industry’s priorities for the fiscal year 2016 funding bill.  In the letter, AGC urges appropriators to prioritize infrastructure investment and pro-infrastructure policies, which include prohibiting implementation of a number of regulations like the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ “Waters of the U.S.” rule, the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council and Department of Labor’s Blacklisting proposed rule, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s local hiring initiatives for federal-aid highway and transit projects.

Last week, AGC submitted a comment letter in response the IRS Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking issued in August on proposed amendments to regulations involving the domestic production activities deduction under Section 199 of the Internal Revenue Code. Specifically, the comments addressed the definition of “substantial renovation” in Prop. Treas. Reg. §1.199-3(m)(5), which indicates that activities constitute substantial renovation where they would be a capitalizable improvement under Section 263(a).

Visit AGC’s Action Center to Urge Congress to Support Renewal of AGC-Supported Extenders

As of publication time, a deal to extend the 50 plus tax provisions that expired at the end of 2014 remained in flux, with few details available coming from the lead congressional negotiators. AGC has had a multitude of meetings with congressional offices before and after the Thanksgiving Day recess to promote our nine extender priorities. Please visit AGC’s Action Center to send a letter to your members of Congress in support of these nine extender priorities.

Regulatory Onslaught on Your Construction Company Will Continue

Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, the administration released the semiannual Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, which includes a timelines for all federal agency rulemaking processes planed and underway, including those that impact the construction industry.  Please see below a list of agencies and their plans for new regulations in 2016 that will impact your construction businesses and how AGC is working to mitigate that impact.