More than 10 weeks into fiscal 2010, funding numbers for the year finally have fallen into place for several key federal construction programs. A Senate vote on Dec. 13 gave final congressional approval to a huge, $446.8-billion spending package that includes six individual appropriations bills for 2010, including transportation and military construction. Results for construction accounts were mixed. Highways, transit, General Services Administration new construction and Dept. of Veterans Affairs programs all won increases, but there were deep cuts in prisons and GSA renovations. Federal-aid highways received a 2.5% boost, thanks to a small hike in the trust-fund-financed obligation limit
Airport construction grants and other Federal Aviation Administration programs will keep running through March, thanks to a newly approved three-month extension. Final congressional action came on Dec. 10, with Senate passage. The bill is the latest in a series of extensions since September 2007, when the last multiyear FAA bill lapsed. The House did pass a three-year measure in May. In the Senate, a two-year bill cleared committee in July but is stalled.
Providing more potential work for construction’s buildings sector, the Dept. of Health and Human Services on Dec. 9 announced $508.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aid to build or renovate 85 community health centers. Competition was stiff: HHS received about 600 applications for the ARRA funds, says David Bowman, a spokesman for HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration. The maximum award was $12 million, for three projects in Massachusetts and one each in California, New York and Washington, D.C. An earlier round of HHS economic-stimulus funds, announced in June, included $539.8 million for smaller health-center projects. Contracts for
The Environmental Protection Agency has moved one step closer to regulating carbon-dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, issuing a formal finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. LISA JACKSON Environmental groups are cheering EPA’s Dec. 7 “endangerment” finding, but construction and other business organizations warn that regulating greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions could choke off economic growth. Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America, says, “At a time when the government is investing billions in construction activity to rebuild our economy, this decision will undermine the stimulus, cost thousands of construction workers their
President Obama will propose a reduction in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions “in the range of 17%” during a United Nations climate-change conference on Dec. 9, the White House announced on Nov. 25. The proposal that Obama will offer at the meeting, to be held in Copenhagen, would trim emissions in 2020 about 17% from 2005 levels. The climate-change bill that the House passed in June also calls for a 17% cut.
The House was expected to take up a bill during the week of Nov. 30 that would freeze the estate tax permanently at 2009 levels. As a floor vote drew near, industry sources said they expected easy passage of the measure, which would keep the estate-tax exemption at $3.5 million for individuals. The maximum tax rate would remain at 45%. Democratic leaders in Congress and the Obama administration say a legislative “fix” is needed to ensure the inheritance tax does not revert in 2011 to pre-Bush era levels, when an estate-tax reform bill enacted in 2001 expires. The Associated General
A new Congressional Budget Office analysis showing that the health-care bill pending on the Senate floor would not substantially boost premiums for most Americans could generate more support from moderate Democrats, who are crucial to passing the measure. But industry and union officials remain concerned about key provisions of the $848-billion measure and say passage before Christmas is more and more unlikely. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a combination of bills that cleared the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees, would cover an additional 31 million Americans and impose new requirements on insurance companies and
The Dept. of Energy has selected 32 pilot projects to receive $620 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aid to evaluate new technologies aimed at making the electricity network more efficient. The private sector is contributing more than $1 billion in matching funds for those projects. The “smart grid” awards, announced on Nov. 24, include $435.2 million for 16 regional grid projects and $184.8 million for 16 energy-storage projects. The largest grant is $88.8 million to Battelle Memorial Institute for a five-state project in the Pacific Northwest. DOE hopes the projects will lead to more extensive applications. In October,
The federal appeals court in New Orleans on Nov. 25 dismissed class-action lawsuits for Hurricane Katrina-related damages against 32 major dredging contractors. Two groups of plaintiffs sued companies that worked under federal contracts in the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), claiming that work damaged protected wetlands and caused an amplification of the storm surge in the New Orleans region during the 2005 hurricane. The 5th U.S. Court of Appeal Circuit in Ackerson v. Bean Dredging LLC, upholding a federal district court’s ruling, applied the principal that public-works contractors duly carrying out projects authorized by Congress have immunity from lawsuits for
When major owners stepped up and starting requiring contractors to improve safety, they got results. At its national conference, the Construction Users Roundtable announced plans to help improve construction industry productivity, as well. + Image Source: EMCOR Group Inc. Safety and productivity go hand in hand. CURT plans to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to implement recommendations from the National Research Council study published last summer. A key initiative is establishing a “universal metric on measuring productivity,” said CURT President Egon Larsen, manager of construction engineering at Air Products & Chemicals, Allenton, Pa. CURT will help
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