Visit www.HardhatsforHighways.org Today Time is running out for members of the House to sign the bipartisan letter, authored by Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Members Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) and Dan Lipinksi (D-Ill.), along with Ways & Means Committee Members Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), and commit to supporting transportation funding initiatives. 

The chief executive officer of AGC of America, Stephen E. Sandherr, released the following statement in response to the release of the Infrastructure 2.0 Act by Maryland Congressman John Delaney: "The Congressman's proposal puts a lot of good ideas on the table that we hope spur vigorous discussion over how best to use tax reform to finance America's aging infrastructure. Congressman Delaney is a serious legislator who understands what levers Congress can use to spur economic growth.

Last week, AGC President Al Landes participated in the “Joining Forces Veterans Transportation Employment Forum” at the White House, which focused on issues related to hiring veterans in various transportation sectors. President Landes was part of a panel moderated by the U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary, to highlight and promote best practices across the Transportation Industry. Landes was able to discuss the issue from the perspective of his own company, Herzog Contracting Corp., and with an overall construction industry perspective as well. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx participated in the meeting as well. Hiring veterans has been one of First Lady Michelle Obama’s priority projects and it seems that the administration has maintained that focus.

AGC entered into a partnership agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to upgrade a website designed to assist construction contractors in complying with federal and state environmental guidelines. Under the partnership, which includes the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), AGC will help finance upgrades to the Construction Industry Compliance Assistance website, or CICA Center. The website was originally launched in the mid-2000s with AGC's assistance and was designed to make it easier for contractors to comply with environmental regulations governing construction projects. The upgrades will feature comprehensive tools and the latest information on state and federal environmental requirements as well as green construction and environmental management programs.

President Obama delivered his sixth state of the union speech on Tuesday. In the speech, the President called for passage of a bipartisan infrastructure plan but added no new details to his previous infrastructure pronouncements. He repeated his previous suggestion that funding should come from corporate tax reform and specifically repatriation of U.S. businesses' overseas earnings. The repatriation idea has been proposed by others and been receiving increasing attention.

Last week, the campaign arm of House Republicans – the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) – issued a press release claiming Democrats want to raise the gas tax.  Not only was the press release irresponsible, but it was inaccurate.  As the 114th Congress began last week, Democrats and Republicans jumped into the discussion of potential Highway Trust Fund solutions and members of both parties acknowledged that the need to keep all options on the table – including a gas tax increase.

As the price of gas continues to drop at the pump and the Highway Trust Fund once again approaches a zero balance, the idea of increasing the gas tax is circulating the halls of Congress.  Several members of Congress made news this week by not dismissing a gas tax increase as one of the potential ways to address the upcoming Highway Trust Fund shortfall, including Senate Environment & Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). 

www.HardhatsforHighways.org With gas taxes making news in Washington this week, now is a great time to contact your representative and ask them to sign on to a bipartisan letter in support of needed transportation funding currently being circulated in the House.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it will not regulate coal combustion waste, including fly ash, as a hazardous substance and by doing so will preserve the future beneficial use of this product in concrete and most other construction applications. AGC has been actively involved in working to convince EPA that a hazardous designation was unnecessary and would have an extremely detrimental impact on the future use of fly ash and raise liability concerns about its previous use.

The Federal Highway Administration this week finalized an agreement with Texas to allow TX-DOT to assume responsibilities for environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to ensure that highway projects in the state comply with environmental law. As part of the project delivery reforms contained in both the SAFETEA-LU transportation authorization legislation, and MAP-21, states are allowed to take on the environmental review responsibilities of the US DOT.