TAKE ACTION: Urge Your Senators to Support Counting Lower-Tier Small Businesses This week, Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) introduced an AGC-supported small business reform amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2014, S. 1197.  Please take action now and urge your U.S. Senators to support the Coons/Wicker Amendment #2286 to S. 1197.

AGC Continues to Advocate for the Construction Industry’s Priorities On Nov. 20, select members of the House and Senate—called conferees—gathered to begin work on resolving the discrepancies between the two chambers respective Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) bills in a conference committee. AGC has been active throughout the WRDA legislative process and advocated for the construction industry’s WRDA priorities in a letter to all conferees, detailing which provisions and policies in both bills should be included in a final WRDA bill.

On Nov. 13, AGC sent a letter opposing the possible use of a project labor agreement (PLA) mandate posted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District for the Center Hill Dam Safety Rehabilitation Project in Lancaster, Tennessee.

The 2014 AGC Federal Contractors Conference will be held June 10-12, 2014, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. The conference will be held in conjunction with the Transportation Construction Coalition meeting, also at the Mayflower Hotel, June 9-10.

On Oct. 31, AGC sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) opposing the agency’s procurement of construction services using online reverse auctions. Specifically, AGC took issue with 14 VA construction services awards—valued at nearly $3 million – that were procured through online reverse auctions.

On Oct. 23, the House of Representatives passed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), H.R. 3080, by a 417-3 vote. With AGC members sending hundreds of letters of support to their members of Congress and an active AGC lobbying campaign, the WRRDA bill passed by an overwhelming margin, despite opposition from anti-construction funding and environmental groups. AGC would like to thank all of our members and chapters who sent letters in support of WRRDA.

TAKE ACTION: Urge Your Congressman to Support WRRDA The House of Representatives is slated to vote on the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), H.R. 3080, next week. Please take action and urge your U.S. Representative to vote “yes” on H.R. 3080.

With time running out to raise our nation’s debt limit by this Thursday, Oct. 17 and the government entering its 15th day of being shutdown, House and Senate leaders are working to cobble together deals in their respective chambers. This morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are expected to brief their Senators on a compromise deal that materialized yesterday.  Terms of the tentative deal include: a debt limit increase through Feb. 7, 2014; funding the government at post –sequester levels of $986.3 billion through Jan. 15, 2014, while providing some flexibility in case the sequester-imposed $10 billion spending cuts go into effect in January; an agreement on an immediate bicameral conference on the budget and on a long-term tax and spending plan, with a deadline for a final conference agreement by Dec. 13; and two Obamacare-related provisions requiring income verification for those individuals receiving a subsidy and a delay of a reinsurance tax, which would levied on health insurance companies which will ultimately be passed on to small businesses and employees who are covered by their employer. If Senators from both parties sign off on the deal, it can be considered on the Senate Floor as early as Wednesday afternoon. 

Proposed Rule Would Limit Federal Contractor Response Time to Evaluations On Oct. 7, AGC submitted comments objecting to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council’s proposed rule that would shorten the minimum 30-day past performance evaluation (PPE) review period for federal contractors to just 14 days. Under the proposed rule, a federal agency must post the PPE to the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) after the 14-day contractor review period expires, whether the contractor objects to the PPE or not.  Contractors, however, would be able to submit comments for inclusion in the PPE on PPIRS if they fail to meet the 14-day requirement. The proposed rule does not require the government to make those changes in a defined amount of time, which AGC indicates in its comments.

AGC Calls for Agency Economic Justification for Bundling & Increased Oversight On Oct. 10, AGC submitted testimony to the House Small Business Subcommittee on Contracting and Workforce, which held a hearing on the impact of federal contract bundling on small businesses. While not opposed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) use of Multiple Award Task Order Contracts (MATOCs) or the Naval Facilities Engineering Command’s (NAVFAC) use of Multiple Award Construction Contracts (MACCs), AGC noted federal agencies increasing use of these contracting vehicles and those contracts’ ability to shut out many contractors from federal work for long periods of time.