Submitted by: Jane C. Luxton and Amanda L. Tharpe

AGC Supported Revisions Included

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia added construction jobs between September 2017 and September 2018...

On October 17, 2018, the Trump Administration unveiled its Fall 2018 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions mapping out federal agency priorities for the coming months. This bi-annual publication informs the public of regulations under consideration or planned by federal agencies. The present agenda includes several submissions by labor agencies.

Over the last year and a half, the Federal Government has initiated a fast-paced agenda for reviewing and revising environmental policies. AGC has tracked and responded to relevant changes through the pre-proposal and proposal processes. The Fall Unified Agenda, released this week, signals that the agencies have no plans to slow their pace.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently released a new memorandum (Memorandum M-18-25), in coordination with the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, establishing a brand new “accountability system” to track and score federal agencies performance in meeting the President Trump’s two-year timeline for completing environmental reviews and authorization decisions on “major infrastructure projects.” The memo requires, and outlines the procedures by which, all agencies that have a role in environmental approvals for infrastructure must regularly track and measure their performance in meeting a list of goals that aim to expedite and improve infrastructure permitting. Agencies must submit tracking information to OMB and the Federal Agency Portal of the “Federal Infrastructure Permitting Dashboard.” OMB will score each agency’s performance, issue reports, and “consider each agency's performance during budget formulation and determine whether appropriate penalties... must or should be imposed.”

AGC submitted comments this week, individually and as part of a construction coalition, to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) requesting that construction industry drivers be exempted from hours of service (HOS) rules.

The cost of many products used in construction climbed 7.4 percent over the past year due to double digit increases in commonly-used construction materials, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of new Labor Department data. Association officials noted that the cost increases come as many construction firms are already grappling with shortages of skilled craftsmen essential for projects but have limited ability to increase prices for their services.

Construction employment increased by 23,000 jobs in September and by 315,000 jobs over the past year, reaching a 10-year high, while the industry’s unemployment rate decreased more than half-a-percentage point to 4.1 percent from a year earlier, according to an analysis of new government data by the Associated General Contractors of America. Even as firms increase headcount and increase pay, a survey by the association suggests that this expansion is threatened by a lack of skilled craft labor.

Saxonburg, Penn.-based Brayman Construction and its affiliate, Advanced Construction Robotics, were named as among the most innovative construction firms in the country for creating an autonomous rebar-tying robot for bridge construction projects. Brayman Construction is a member of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), and along with Sundt Construction and the AGC Oregon-Columbia Chapter, was recognized as the first ever first-place winner of the AGC-Autodesk Innovation Awards announced today during the AGC Centennial Celebration.