Author: agcnews

AGC of America and other business groups jointly submitted an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court on March 3 in support of a land developer’s request for review of a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that allows citizen enforcement even when the state environmental agency has begun enforcement for a Clean Water Act (CWA) violation. The issue in the case, Dakota Finance LLC (dba Arabella Farm) v. Naturaland Trust (No. 21-1517), is whether a state agency’s notice of violation (NOV) commences an action that is sufficient to protect a regulated entity from citizen-suit liability. Citizen suits are generally barred if the state “has…

Engineering News-Record (ENR) Magazine recently wrote a thought-provoking article entitled “Will Claims by Contractors on Big Design-Build Projects Ever End?” Progressive design-build is mentioned as a means to address some of the critiques that design-build faces today. Progressive design-build has attracted increasing usage on larger projects, especially horizontal construction.[i] So is progressive design-build (PDB) as good as a PB&J sandwich with the crusts cut off? And if so, what does that mean for standard form contract language around this approach? What is Progressive Design-Build? Progressive design-build procurement uses two phases. The first phase is a qualifications-based or limited-scope best-value selection to procure the…

Texters beware: Your data is not your own! Joining on this episode to share their experiences on the front line are Lauren Abeyta, COO at Construction Discovery Experts, and Kristin Protas, VP & Deputy General Counsel at Gilbane Building Company. They talk about the realities and proliferation of electronic communication and how to successfully manage your digital footprint and train your teams to keep you out of trouble.

The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee advances AGC-supported legislation to repeal a new Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule that would expand federal permitting jurisdiction over wetlands and more construction projects. On February 28, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved AGC-backed legislation (H.J. Res. 27) that would repeal the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers’ new Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule. The legislative action complements AGC’s ongoing litigation to reverse the rule. The administration released its new WOTUS rule despite the fact the U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing the scope of the Clear Water Act as part…

Total construction spending decreased by 0.1 percent in January, as declines in single-family homebuilding and public construction offset marginal gains from private nonresidential construction, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America today of new federal data. Association officials said a lack of clear guidance from officials in Washington is delaying expenditures on much-needed infrastructure and energy projects. “Laws enacted more than six months ago created unprecedented funding and tax credits for a wide range of transportation, environmental, energy and manufacturing projects,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “But few contractors have actually won contracts yet.”…

On February 13, AGC submitted comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), agreeing with agency’s tentative plans to reject an environmental group’s request to list discarded polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl) as hazardous waste under federal law. According to EPA, the Center for Biological Diversity’s legal petition, filed back in 2014, does not support regulation under the waste law and EPA lacks the needed resources to do so. These valid arguments are outlined in EPA’s “tentative” denial of the petition, on which the agency solicited public comment. AGC urged EPA to firmly and finally deny this petition for rulemaking. In addition…

The new report, 2022 National Construction Industry Workforce Summit: Success Stories and New Strategies offers a comprehensive summary of AGC’s most-recent Workforce Summit. This includes over 40 new workforce development solutions crafted by Summit participants, as well as details about what firms, AGC chapters and educators are already doing that is helping address the industry’s workforce needs. Please use this report as a resource for ideas about ways to better recruit, train and retain the industry’s workforce. We trust you will find the information in the report useful and encourage you to share it with colleagues as appropriate. And do not hesitate…

The Construction Labor Research Council (CLRC) reports that the first contract year of new collective bargaining settlements reached in 2022 for union craft workers in the construction industry yielded an average wage-and-benefit increase of 3.8 percent or $2.34. The rate of growth in package increases between 2020 and 2022 was higher than at any time in more than a decade, CLRC observed, attributing the steep incline to inflation rather than to labor shortages or COVID effects. CLRC projects annual increases to average approximately 4.2 percent by 2024. Every region saw growth, and the increases were larger in 2022 than in 2021 for…

AGC recently submitted formal comments to the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) on a proposed rule to modify certain union representation case procedures. AGC joined with other employer groups in filing joint comments through the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (“CDW”) and filed our own supplementary comments focused on construction-industry issues. The Board’s proposed rule seeks to rescind regulations issued during the Trump Administration and return to the prior status quo. The Trump-era regulations changed three NLRB policies, two of which apply employers across all private industries – the “blocking charge” and “recognition bar” policies – and one…

In light of price escalation, supply chain challenges, and inflation, more industry practitioners are considering and using cost-of-the-work agreements that may or may not include a guaranteed maximum price (GMP). ConsensusDocs publishes several cost-of-the-work agreements and recently released a new standard contract document to support a cost-of-the-work agreement with a GMP as well as a directed change order standard form. Setting the GMP When a GMP is used, it is set by amendment. The ConsensusDocs 230 Standard Agreement Between an Owner and Constructor with General Conditions (Cost of the Work with a Fee and a GMP) assumes a GMP. For the ConsensusDocs…