The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sent a letter on Jan. 8 to its state field offices directing them to comply with a provision (section 192) in the fiscal year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations Act –signed into law in December 2015 – requiring states to certify that three conditions have been satisfied on each federally assisted highway project before it can allow the use of contract provisions that specify a “geographic, economic, or any other hiring preference.” The three conditions states must certify are present before using a local hire preference include:

Congress’s repeated failure to increase the federal gas tax has resulted in eighteen states enacting laws to increase or reform their taxes to provide additional funding for transportation infrastructure since 2013. The recently signed-into-law transportation bill, the FAST Act, does provide five years of slightly increased funding for federal-aid highway and transit programs but fails to address the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund – continuing to place the burden on states to find additional funding for transportation infrastructure.

The fiscal year (FY) 2016 omnibus appropriations bill, passed by Congress at the end of December, includes a provision allowing states to use federal-aid highway funding that was previously earmarked for specific projects to be used for other projects located nearby. Specifically, the provision allows states to transfer funding authority from projects that had funds earmarked 10 or more years ago but have used less than 10 percent of their dedicated funds, to other projects within a 50 mile radius. The Federal Highway Administration reports that Congress has allocated funding for more than 6,700 projects that was never used. Of that number, approximately 1,300 projects meet the 10 year/10 percent requirement with approximately $2.1 billion in funding still available. According to the Eno Transportation Weekly publication, the $2.1 billion of budget authority for highway projects will result in $500 million in new outlays in fiscal year 2016 and another $1.4 billion over the following seven years. States have up to three years to reprogram the earmarked funds or they are lost forever.

Save $75 on Registration Fee; Held May 10-11 in DC Register before January 31 for the 2016 AGC Federal Contractors Conference (FEDCON) and save $75 off the registration fee. FEDCON—held May 10-11 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.—is the premier conference for federal construction contractors to discuss the latest projects, policies and contracting issues facing the industry with federal agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facility Engineering Command, Air Force Civil Engineer Center, General Services Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of State, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Bureau of Reclamation.

Passage Expected Before Christmas On Wednesday, Congressional leaders released a $1.1 trillion omnibus appropriations bill that will fund federal agencies and programs for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2016. Overall, the bill includes mostly good news for construction accounts, as many see increases compared to FY 2015 levels and others receive significantly smaller cuts than Congress initially wanted. The omnibus bill provides nearly $121 billion for federal construction accounts as tracked by AGC. This is an increase of approximately $8 billion from fiscal year 2015 and $15 billion less than the administration’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. To give time for passage of this final spending package, Congress passed another short-term funding bill—called a continuing resolution—that will fund the government through Dec. 22. The House is expected to pass the omnibus bill on Friday, with a vote in the Senate to follow shortly thereafter.

Contact Your Senators & Ask Them to Support the FAST Act This afternoon by a vote of 359-65 passed the conference report to HR. 22, the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which is the first long-term transportation bill in more than a decade. The Senate is now expected to take up the FAST Act and, if they are successful in clearing potential procedural votes, they will vote on final passage later this evening. Please visit Hardhats for Highways and urge them to support the FAST Act when it comes to the Senate floor for a vote. Please also take a moment to thank your Representative for their support of the bill. If the Senate is able to pass the bill this evening, it appears the president will sign it prior to the expiration of the current extension tomorrow.

Prior to Thanksgiving, the president signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2016 (NDAA Bill), which includes several AGC-backed federal procurement reform provisions that will help prevent individual surety fraud, allow joint ventures to submit individual businesses’ relevant past performance evaluations as part of their proposals—not merely the relevant past performance of the joint venture itself—and fix a recent court decision that would have required small business construction contractors to purchase all their materials and supplies from other small businesses.

Congress Drafting an End-of-Year Funding Bill Last week, AGC sent a letter to congressional leaders and members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees detailing the construction industry’s priorities for the fiscal year 2016 funding bill. In the letter, AGC urges appropriators to prioritize infrastructure investment and pro-infrastructure policies, which include prohibiting implementation of a number of regulations like the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ “Waters of the U.S.” rule, the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council and Department of Labor’s Blacklisting proposed rule, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s local hiring initiatives for federal-aid highway and transit projects.

Contact your Congressmen and Tell Them to Support a Long-Term Bill This week, select members of the House and Senate –called conferees – began negotiations on resolving the differences between the two chambers’ long-term highway & transit bills. However, with funding levels and duration yet to be agreed upon, negotiations are off to a slow start, which could result in yet another short-term extension if Congress does not reach a deal by November 20. AGC – along with our members and chapters – has been a leader in the reauthorization process and advocated for the construction industry’s priorities in a letter to all conferees, detailing which provisions and policies should be included in a final transportation bill. Please visit Hardhats for Highways and send a letter to your members of Congress, urging them to support a long-term highway & transit bill.

As previously reported by AGC, the Bipartisan Budget Act was a two-year budget agreement that Present Obama signed into law on Nov. 2. The bill included a provision that repeals the prohibition against adjusting the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) civil penalties for inflation. Unlike other similar federal civil penalties – which are covered by the Federal Civil Penalties Adjustment Act of 1990 – the OSHA civil penalties have been explicitly exempted from inflation since 1990. This means that OSHA penalties will now increase for the first time in 25 years.