Work on an authorization bill for highway and transit funding continues in both the House and Senate.  The current extension of the authorization expires on March 31. The authorization still faces many obstacles in both chambers, however, this is the closest Congress has come to passing a transportation bill since the current authorization (SAFETEA-LU) expired on Sep. 30, 2009.

An agreement between House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over a 2010 National Mediation Board (NMB) rule, that changed procedures for airline and rail workers' union elections, has opened the way for final agreement on long-term Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization legislation. With the latest extension of FAA authorization set to expire on Jan. 31, the House approved an extension of FAA authorization through Feb.17, the 23rd extension, and the Senate is expected to follow suit.

The rollercoaster ride to the Republican presidential nomination continued on Jan. 21 with Newt Gingrich comfortably defeating Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary. With Iowa officially declaring Rick Santorum the winner in their caucuses and Mitt Romney taking the New Hampshire primary, what many expected to be Romney’s smooth road to the nomination has been anything but smooth.

The 2011 AGC PAC Chapter Board competition finished strong, as 23 (bolded below) of the 38 participating chapters achieved 100 percent board member participation and a chance to win a complimentary, standard registration package for AGC’s 2013 convention.

As AGC reported previously, a company called LightSquared is planning to build a national mobile internet network to compete with the data signal offered by major cell phone companies. Early reports indicated that the spectrum they planned to use was too close to the signal band used by the Global Positioning System, causing signal bleed and interference, particularly for the sensitive GPS receivers aboard agricultural and construction equipment.

On Jan. 13, 2011, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace – of which AGC is a member – and co-plaintiffs filed a motion to amend their complaint challenging the NLRB’s employee notice rule to add a count challenging the Board’s authority to implement or enforce the rule with only two members.  The motion alleges that the recess appointments of Richard Griffin, Sharon Block and Terry Flynn are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court’s New Process Steel decision stated that the board must have three members to perform certain duties; therefore the two-member board is inadequate.

With Congress returning next week for the second session of the 112th Congress, two major infrastructure authorization bills are in position to move through the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Current extensions of authorizations covering the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Federal highways and transit programs expire in the first quarter of 2012, with the FAA expiring on January 31 and highways and transit on March 31.

With only 73 days remaining until the expiration of the latest highway and transit authorization extension, today AGC kicked-off a comprehensive grassroots and communications campaign asking Congress to take action on a reauthorization bill before March 31, 2012.

Mitt Romney secured a decisive and expected victory in Tuesday night’s New Hampshire presidential primary, easily defeating runner-up Ron Paul and leaving his conservative challengers trailing far behind. As a result, the former Massachusetts governor is the first-ever Republican who is not an incumbent president to win both the Iowa and New Hampshire contests.

On Dec. 9, 2011, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued its proposed rule to revise regulations under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act implementing affirmative action and nondiscrimination obligations to contractors and subcontractors, and to evaluate the affirmative action provisions.  Currently, employers that have a direct contract (including a construction contract) with the federal government or its agencies that is valued at $10,000 or more, or that have a subcontract of the same value required to complete a direct federal contract, are required to engage in affirmative action related to individuals with disabilities.  Projects that are funded by federal aid programs, such as the federal aid highway program, are not affected.