Save $75 on Registration Fee; Held May 9-11 in DC Register on or before February 12 for the 2016 AGC Federal Contractors Conference (FEDCON) and save $75 off the registration fee. FEDCON—held May 10-11 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.—is the premier conference for federal construction contractors to discuss the latest projects, policies and contracting issues facing the industry with federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facility Engineering Command, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, General Services Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of State, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Bureau of Reclamation.

Rules Impact Direct-Federal Contractors Snow can close the federal government, but it does not stop the federal regulatory machine. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council and U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently issued final and proposed rules, respectively, that impact direct-federal construction contractors.

Recently, AGC sent letters opposing the possible use of a project labor agreement (PLA) mandate posted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District. The letters address the possible use of mandatory PLAs involving the construction work on the Chickamauga Lock in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Kentucky Lock Addition near Paducah, Kentucky.

Save $75 on Registration Fee; Held May 10-11 in DC Register before January 31 for the 2016 AGC Federal Contractors Conference (FEDCON) and save $75 off the registration fee. FEDCON—held May 10-11 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.—is the premier conference for federal construction contractors to discuss the latest projects, policies and contracting issues facing the industry with federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facility Engineering Command, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, General Services Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of State, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Bureau of Reclamation.

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.

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.

AGC Federal Procurement Priorities to Become Law Both the House (last week) and Senate (this week) overwhelmingly passed the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2016 (NDAA Bill), a bill the president vetoed just two weeks ago. The president is expected to sign the bill into law as a result of the bipartisan budget agreement reached two weeks ago. Compared to the vetoed version of the bill, this NDAA bill has slightly lower levels of spending for Department of Defense programs.

Save $100 on Registration Fee Register today for the 2016 AGC Federal Contractors Conference (FEDCON) and save $100 off the registration fee. FEDCON is the premier conference for federal construction contractors to discuss the latest projects, policies and contracting issues facing the industry with federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facility Engineering Command, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, General Services Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of State, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Bureau of Reclamation.

The House and Senate approved the conference report for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, which includes several AGC-supported procurement reforms. Those reforms:

Positive Change Stemming from AGC Legislative Action The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) released a proposed rule that would allow prime contractors to count lower-tier, small business subcontracts towards their small business subcontracting goals. Currently, prime contractors can only take credit for their small business subcontracts at the first tier. This proposed rule will allow prime contractors to take credit for such subcontracts—above $650,000—at any tier to meet such goals.