A newly enacted short-term spending bill keeps federal programs operating until April 8, but also mandates $6 billion in spending cuts. Those cuts were especially deep at the General Services Administration’s federal buildings construction program. The bill, which President Obama signed on March 18, slashes all of GSA’s fiscal 2011 spending for new construction and trims funding for major building repairs and energy-efficiency upgrades by about 30%. Robert A. Peck, commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service, says the stopgap would affect all line-item projects in the agency’s 2011 budget request. That includes $652 million for new construction and $321 million

Seeking to stretch federal public-works dollars, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has proposed legislation to create a federal infrastructure bank, called the American Infrastructure Financing Authority, to help fund transportation, water and energy projects. Under Kerry’s bill, introduced on March 17, the bank would have $10 billion in initial federal funding. He estimates that could stimulate up to $640 billion in private and other non-federal investment over 10 years. The Obama administration’s 2012 budget proposal includes an infrastructure bank, funded at $30 billion over six years but limited to transportation projects. It would provide grants and loans. Kerry’s bank would issue

The union rights controversy isn’t confined to Wisconsin or teachers. Newly seated Republican majorities in several budget-strapped states have swung legislative wrecking balls at some of the pillars of the building trades, including prevailing wages and project labor agreements. In Ohio, where newly elected Gov. John Kasich (R) has pledged to cut costly regulations, new Republican lawmakers have provided a substantial majority in the state Senate. A bill originating in the Ohio House of Representatives would prohibit state funding on any local government project built under a project labor agreement. On prevailing wages, open-shop contractors are “working with the governor

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee has approved a measure that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from moving forward with greenhouse-gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. The bill, sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), cleared a subcommittee of his panel on March 10. In the Senate, James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has introduced a companion bill.

With the White House and some in Congress against a gas-tax hike, lawmakers drafting a long-term highway-transit bill are hunting for other funding sources. An option gaining serious attention involves enhancing the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program, which provides federal loans and loan guarantees for major projects. TIFIA’s appeal is its multiplier effect: A modest direct federal subsidy can support big loans, leveraging non-federal dollars to yield packages funding billion-dollar projects. TIFIA, launched in 1998, has a solid following. The Federal Highway Administration reports $6.3 billion in active TIFIA loans for 17 projects with a total cost of

A House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee chairman has told the General Service Administration’s Public Buildings Service that the panel will not approve any new GSA leases until the agency provides more information about its leased and owned properties, including those on which GSA loses money. At a March 10 hearing, subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) criticized GSA, which has many surplus properties. “Given the financial crisis facing our country, we must reduce the amount of money we spend to house federal employees,” he said. PBS Commissioner Robert Peck said he would provide the data Denham is seeking. GSA’s 2012 budget

Another short-term spending bill has advanced in Congress. The House on March 15 passed a measure to fund federal agencies through April 8, with $6 billion in spending cuts. The vote was 271-158. The cuts include all $894 million slated for the General Services Administration construction account. Senate approval of the measure is needed by March 18, when the current stopgap expires. Among the House bill’s $6 billion in cuts is $2.6 billion in earmarks, including the GSA construction money. The measure also trims GSA’s repairs and alterations account by $130 million but still leaves it with $284 million. Congress

With a current stopgap spending measure due to expire on March 18, House Republicans on March 11 introduced a further, three-week extension that includes an additional $6 billion in spending cuts, including a proposal to zero out the General Services Administration's new construction account. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that Senate Democrats had agreed to the House GOP's proposal, and said that the cuts in the bill had been "already proposed by Democrats." The new House GOP proposal, introduced by Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), would extend through April 8. Its $6 billion in cuts includes $2.6

As another federal funding deadline looms on March 18, congressional Democrats and Republicans are far apart on spending levels for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year. Construction industry officials say spending cuts are all but inevitable. They hope an eventual compromise won’t have reductions that inflict as much pain on infrastructure programs as the cuts in a bill that the House recently approved. “Everybody agrees that there’s going to be cuts,” says Andrew Goldberg, the American Institute of Architects’ senior director of federal relations. The question is how deep the reductions will be, Goldberg observes. A proposal that Senate

A new report from the Government Accountability Office highlights numerous duplicated programs within federal agencies, including surface transportation and U.S.-Mexico border-region water infrastructure. The report, released on Feb. 28, was requested by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who attached an amendment to last year’s debt-limit vote directing GAO to conduct an annual review of redundant federal programs. Coburn says the new report will be helpful as Congress debates budget and appropriations measures. He says, “GAO has identified a mother lode of government waste and duplication that should keep Congress busy for the rest of the year.” In the introduction to the