U.S. Military Announces it is Dropping PLA Mandate as Government Promises to Pull Mandate on All Twelve Projects that Were Subject to a Bid Protest Approach AGC of America Helped Craft
The Associated General Contractors of America’s chief executive officer, Jeffrey Shoaf, issued the following statement in reaction to the U.S. Department of Defense announcing it was issuing a class deviation dropping project labor agreement requirements for its military construction solicitations and government promise to remove the same mandate on twelve projects that were the subject of a bid protest approach that was crafted at the behest of the Associated General Contractors of America.
“Our association’s novel bid protest approach was designed to block the unlawful mandating of project labor agreements on all federal construction projects valued at $35 million or more. While last month’s ruling in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims made it clear that former President Biden’s executive order mandating the use of such agreements was unlawful, there was some doubt whether federal officials would come to the same conclusion.
“The announcement that the U.S. Department of Defense will drop project labor agreement mandates from its military construction solicitations is a clear sign that our approach is working. We expect all federal agencies involved in procuring construction services to follow suit and drop what is clearly an unlawful mandate from their construction solicitations.
“In addition, we will continue our conversations with the Trump administration about the need to officially revoke former President Biden’s illegal project labor agreement mandate Executive Order and FAR Rules to eliminate any remaining ambiguity that exist within the ranks of federal procurement officials.”