Last month, the US General Services Administration (GSA) published its updated P-100: Facilities Standards for the Public Buildings Service.  The 2014 PBS-P100 establishes design standards for new buildings, major and minor alterations, and work in historic structures for the GSA Public Buildings Service (PBS).  This document contains both performance based standards and prescriptive requirements to be used in the programming, design, and documentation of GSA buildings.  It is a mandatory standard for GSA facilities.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) (together, the “Services”) recently announced a significant set of proposed regulatory changes and policies relating to critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”).  The proposed rules and policies increase the discretion of the Services to designate broad areas of occupied and unoccupied habitat as critical habitat, and increase the likelihood that federal actions will be determined to adversely modify designated critical habitat.

On May 14, AGC launched a new Twitter account -- @AGCEnvironment -- as a resource for environmental compliance and sustainability news and information from a broad range of sources.  AGC’s Director of Green Construction will comb the Web and collect information of interest in one easy place for you to access.  Whenever possible, we highlight AGC members that are making the news or blogging about relevant topics.

The chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of America, Stephen E. Sandherr, issued the following statement in response to the release of the final version of the joint House-Senate conference committee’s Water Resources Reform & Development Act: "The release of this water resources bill is yet another sign that investing in infrastructure is something members of both parties in both houses of Congress can and do support. Republicans and Democrats alike understand and appreciate the economic wisdom of improving our aging system of inland waterways, harbors, ports, locks and dams.

Today, AGC celebrates Building Safety Month, along with other leaders of America’s design and construction industry, promoting resilience as the solution to making the nation’s aging infrastructure more safe and secure.  AGC and almost two dozen associations, representing 700,000 members, issued a joint statement on reliance at a special press conference and event on May 13 at the National Building Museum.  AGC  has included a session on how owners are incorporating resiliency into their plans during AGC’s 2014 Contractors Environmental Conference—on June 12-13, in Arlington, Va.  Visit www.agc.org/enviroconf2014 for more information.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has embarked on three notable activities to gather information and data to determine whether or not renovation activities in public and commercial buildings expose the public to lead-based paint dust, with a possible proposed rule coming in July 2015.  First, EPA is soliciting small construction company representatives to advise a federal review panel on how to minimize the potential burden of any proposed regulation on small businesses. The deadline to submit a nomination is May 9 – click here to apply.  

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a harmful decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, issued in April 2013 in Mingo Logan Coal Co. v. EPA, which says the Clean Water Act (CWA) grants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the “veto” power to withdraw a Section 404 dredge-and-fill permit several years after it has been duly issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and relied upon by the permittee.

Just how geographically broad should the federal government’s role be in regulating water pollution? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have released a proposed rule that would amend the existing definition of “Waters of the United States,” as used in 12 sections of the Code of Federal Regulations,* affecting nearly as many different regulatory programs. This term dictates exactly what waters fall under federal jurisdiction and triggers federal water quality limits, standards, permits, enforcement and other reviews. The proposed rule would not only alter permitting programs under the Clean Water Act (CWA) -- regulating dredging, filling and stormwater discharges -- but also would also expand other regulatory obligations, such as the requirement to develop spill prevention, control and countermeasure (SPCC) plans (on the basis that a release of oil could reasonably discharge into jurisdictional waters) and the requirement to report hazardous substances releases.

AGC’s Contractors Environmental Conference Helps Lead the Way We invite you to join the Associated General Contractors of America in celebrating Earth Day.  Earth Day presents us with an opportunity to rethink the way we do things in our homes and businesses. It reminds us of the importance of building a sustainable environment for ourselves and our future generations.  Here are three ways you can celebrate earth day year-round.  

This week, both the House and Senate continued to apply pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider the significant expansion of its authority to regulation wetlands and wet areas under the Clean Water Act (CWA). In the Senate, all eight Republican Senators on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee sent a letter to President Barack Obama regarding federal regulation of CWA jurisdiction, which the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) released in late March.