Author: agcnews

Construction employment in December remained below levels reached just before the start of the pandemic in more than half the states despite widespread gains last month, according to a new analysis of federal employment data released today by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials said employment hasn’t recovered fully because most firms report difficulty finding workers, according to the association’s recent survey predicting the industry’s hiring and business outlook. “Even though employment has risen in more states recently, so has the number of job openings as contractors struggle to find qualified workers in an increasingly tight labor market,” said Ken Simonson, the…

On February 22, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced nearly $450 million in newly available grant funding for port-related infrastructure projects through the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP). This announcement represents a historic level of funding for this program that awards competitive grants to projects that improve the safety, efficiency, or reliability of the movement of goods into, out of, around, or within a port. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act significantly increased the funding levels for this program, as it has awarded no more than $293M per year since its conception in 2019. Past project awards include rail enhancements, container capacity and…

AGC Continues to Push Back on “Fix-it-First” False Narrative On Feb. 18, Republican Senators, led by Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), called on Secretary Pete Buttigieg to rescind or substantially revise the controversial Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) guidance memo that calls for, among other things, limiting a state’s ability to add new highway capacity. You might remember, AGC provided feedback to FHWA on this same memo back in January. The FHWA memo promotes the same narrative that some external stakeholders and Members of Congress already pushed, that state DOTs should focus exclusively on maintenance and repair work on…

Construction firms are coping with a seemingly unending series of supply-chain disruptions that are compounding problems caused by record materials cost increases and pandemic-induced challenges to operations. It has never been more important for project participants to be prepared with strategies to mitigate the risk of material price escalation and delays due to material shortages — in order to preserve the feasibility and profitability of the project. On this episode, Greg Sweeso of Tarlton Corporation, Jack Mumma of Michigan State University, and Ronald Ciotti of Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP share risk mitigation strategies available during the bidding, procurement, and…

NEW! ConstructorCast Episode: Material Price Escalation, Delays, and COVID-19 Construction firms are coping with a seemingly unending series of supply-chain disruptions that are compounding problems caused by record materials cost increases and pandemic-induced challenges to operations. It has never been more important for project participants to be prepared with strategies to mitigate the risk of material price escalation and delays due to material shortages — in order to preserve the feasibility and profitability of the project. On this episode, Greg Sweeso of Tarlton Corporation, Jack Mumma of Michigan State University, and Ronald Ciotti of Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP share…

While traditional contracting or design-bid-build is still the most prevalent project delivery method in the United States construction market, the design-build project delivery method has risen in usage significantly over the past 20 years to become a well-established contracting vehicle by private and public owners alike for all types and sizes of construction projects. The ConsensusDocs design-build standard contract documents are some of the most used in the United States. A comparison of the ConsensusDocs design-build contracts as compared to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) can be found here. Design liability has become a…

Allston Marble graduated from the University of Nebraska-Kearney with a BS in Construction Management in 2008. Allston joined Linbeck Group in 2007 as an intern and was hired full time in 2008. At Linbeck, Allston has worked as an Intern, Engineer, Project Manager, Client Executive and now Vice President. In his current role, Allston works on various private, K-12, non-profit, cultural and higher education portfolios in Houston. Allston has been involved with the AGC since his time at Nebraska-Kearney and his local Houston AGC chapter since moving to Houston in 2008. Allston has served the AGC in various leadership roles…

Update as of August 1st, 2023: The Canadian softwood lumber tariffs have been lowered to 7.99%. Click here to find the latest rates. Read below for the original story from February 17, 2022. The Commerce Department made a preliminary determination to lower softwood lumber import tariffs from Canada from the current rate of 17.9 percent to 11.64 percent. The rate is set to take effect by August of 2022. In November of 2021, the tariff rate was doubled to 17.9 percent. Although it is difficult to quantify the impact of these tariffs on lumber prices, the price of lumber rose by 50 percent…

Allows Congress More Time to Negotiate Full-Year Bill, Including Funding for New Infrastructure Programs With funding for the federal government set to expire on February 18, the Senate is expected to pass a short-term funding agreement, also known as a “continuing resolution” (CR), this week. The CR would provide stopgap funding through March 11 and follows recent action by the House of Representatives to pass the CR on February 8. With the passage of this short-term funding agreement, Congress will have more time to strike a deal to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year. Important to those…

Construction Association Releases New Inflation Alert to Inform Owners, Officials of Cost, Supply, and Labor Challenges; Urges Federal Officials to Take Additional Steps to Ease Supply Change Disruptions Prices of construction materials jumped more than 20 percent from January 2021 to January 2022, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of government data released today. The association recently posted a new edition of its Construction Inflation Alert, a report to inform project owners, officials, and others about the challenges volatile materials costs, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages posed for construction firms. “Unfortunately, there has been no letup early this year…