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.
Small Business Administration
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) plans to move on several important rulemaking processes that will only impact direct-federal contractors (those contractors with contracts directly with a federal agency; not contractors that hold federal-aid contracts through state departments of transportation). Those rulemakings include:
- Small Business Mentor-Protégé Program. The SBA issued a proposed rule in February 2015 that would expand the agency’s mentor-protégé program to all small businesses regardless of set-aside category. The SBA plans to issue a final regulation in April 2016. For more information and AGC’s comments on the proposed rule, click here.
- Small Business Limitations on Subcontracting. The SBA issued a proposed rule in December 2014 that would that would change the performance of work requirements small business general and specialty subcontractors must self-perform. The SBA plans to issue a final regulation in April 2016. For more information and AGC’s comments on the proposed rule, click here.
- Credit for Lower Tier Small Business Subcontracting. The SBA issued a proposed rule in October 2015 that would allow prime contractors to count small business subcontracts at all tiers—not only the first subcontracting tier—towards the prime contractor’s small business subcontracting goals. Through AGC’s efforts, Congress passed and the president signed this reform into law. The SBA plans to issue a final regulation in July 2016. For more information on the proposed rule, click here. Comments are due December 7 and AGC will submit its comments supporting the proposed rule then.
Federal Acquisition Regulation Council
The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council will address several regulatory efforts in 2016. As with the SBA rules, FAR rules only apply to direct-federal contractors. Important rulemakings construction contractors should be aware of include:
- Blacklisting Executive Order. The FAR Council issued a proposed rule in May 2015 to implement the president’s “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” Executive Order—referred to as the Blacklisting Executive Order. Under the proposed rule, both prime and subcontractors must report violations of 14 federal labor laws and “equivalent” state labor laws during the previous three years, and again every six months, on federal contracts over $500,000. Prime contractors would also be responsible for evaluating the labor law violations of its subcontractors at all tiers. The FAR Council plans to issue a final rule in February 2016. For more information and AGC’s comments, click here.
- Improvements to Design-Build Construction. The FAR Council issued a proposed rule in October 2015 to limit the second-step (“short-list”) of the two-step design-build procurement process to no more than five teams. Through AGC’s efforts, this reform was passed into law last year. The FAR Council plans to issue a final rule in April 2016. For more information on the proposed rule, click here. Comments are due December 7 and AGC will submit its comments supporting the proposed rule then.
For more information, please contact Jimmy Christianson at 703-837-5325 or christiansonj@agc.org.