Governor Mitt Romney won the Texas primary on Tuesday, thereby clinching the Republican nomination for president. With the Texas victory, Romney won all 152 delegates at stake and surpassed the 1,144 delegates necessary for the nomination.

Later this evening, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) is expected to offer an amendment to the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs (MilCon/VA) Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2013 (H.R. 5854) that would remove a provision that eliminates government-mandated project labor agreements on federal construction contracts. AGC sent this letter to the House today urging  opposition to the amendment.

The House approved a short-term, 60-day extension of the National Flood Insurance Program yesterday, keeping the program alive and setting the stage for continued debate over reform this summer. The bill was approved by a voice vote.

Close to 400 members of the Transportation Construction Coalition (TCC) came to Washington, D.C. this week as part of the 11th Annual TCC Legislative Fly-In to urge Congress to complete action on the transportation reauthorization bill before the current extension expires on June 30. The participants heard from House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) and the Ranking Democrat Nick Rahall (W.Va.), who discussed the status of negotiations between the 47 members of the House/Senate Conference Committee charged with negotiating a compromise bill.

Rep. Paul Broun (R- Ga.) has threatened to bring a motion to the House floor as early as tonight, which would instruct House conferees to insist on limiting total "funding out of the Highway Trust Fund" in FY 2012 and 2013 to the revenue from gas tax receipts that the Congressional Budget Office currently projects will be deposited in the Trust Fund. Under the motion, total funding in 2012 and 2013 would be about twenty-five percent below current levels.

AGC PAC-supported candidate Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) won the Republican primary outright in Arkansas's 4th Congressional District on May 22, avoiding a runoff election. Prior to running for Congress, Cotton served for five years in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He also worked as a business consultant for a major firm and clerked for a Federal Court of Appeals judge.

Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick officially assumed command as U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 53rd commanding general on May 22. Previously, Bostick served as Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1, U.S. Army. In April 2011, the U.S. Defense Department announced his nomination to the rank of Lieutenant General as well as his assignment as Commanding General, Corps of Engineers, and Chief Engineer of the U.S. Army.

America transports $180 billion worth of freight across 38 states on inland waterways. However, as AGC has long advocated, the nation’s inland waterway infrastructure system needs adequate investment to keep up with freight demand.  USA Today underscored that point in an article this week . As the article notes, “inadequate investment led to nearly 80,000 hours of lock outages in fiscal 2010, four times more than in fiscal 2000.” To view the article, click here.

The White House budget office recently issued a memorandum to federal agencies directing them to plan for discretionary spending cuts of 5 percent below the 2014 levels the administration had previously outlined in its 2013 budget request.  Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeff Zients notes that “the 2014 Budget will need to make hard choices,” as the Budget Control Act, which put into place steep discretionary spending cuts resulting from the last summer’s debt ceiling deal, continues to sharply constrain discretionary spending.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2013 with a host of small business contracting reforms attached to the measure. The reforms AGC supported and advocated for include: