Reverse Auction & Design-Build Bills Introduced In House

On July 19, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) introduced the AGC-supported Construction Contracting Act of 2013, H.R. 2751, which would prohibit federal agencies from procuring construction services from small businesses through reverse auctions. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) introduced the Design Build Efficiency and Jobs Act of 2013, H.R. 2750, which would limit the second-step of the design-build procurement process to no more than five finalists and limit the use of single-step design-build procurement. Both of these bills apply only to direct-federal agency acquisition and not to state or local agencies. AGC has long fought reverse auction procurement for construction services and advocated for federal agencies utilizing industry supported best practices for design-build.  On prohibiting reverse auctions, AGC has testified on numerous occasions before Congress, including May 23 of this year when the draft legislation was discussed before the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business. In addition, AGC has opposed recent efforts by the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct reverse auctions for construction services. AGC sent a letter to the sponsors and co-sponsors of the legislation thanking them for their work on these measures. For more information, please contact Jimmy Christianson at (703)-837-5325 or christiansonj@agc.org.