President Obama will nominate Patrick Gallagher, the acting head of the Commerce Dept.'s National Institute of Standards and Technology, to be its director, the White House announced on Sept. 10. Photo: D.Anderson/NIST Gallagher has been NIST deputy director since 2008. For the construction industry, NIST's key unit is its Building and Fire Research Laboratory, which includes the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, as well as applied economics, material and construction research, building environment and fire research offices. The lab's best-known recent project was a three-year building and fire safety investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center disaster. NIST's

The American Society of Civil Engineers has produced a manual of policies and procedures for organizing and conducting damage assessments after man-made or natural disasters. The Post-Disaster Assessment Manual was developed on the recommendation of an independent task force, led by Sherwood Boehlert, retired congressman and former chair of the House Science Committee. The task force was asked by ASCE in late 2007 to review its damage-inquest and peer-review practices after the credibility of some recent investigations, particularly the peer review of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-funded study of Hurricane Katrina, was challenged by critics. They said issues related

Construction officials in Washington have circled and underlined Sept. 30 on their calendars because it’s the expiration date for several measures that are critically important to the industry. The list includes surface transportation reauthorization, appropriations and a bill funding Federal Aviation Administration programs. Congress returned on Sept. 8 from its August recess, leaving little time before slamming into those deadlines. That makes short-term extensions nearly certain, giving lawmakers time to hammer out longer-term bills. Of measures facing Sept. 30 deadlines, the top construction priority is a successor to the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for

A federal court has upheld the legality of President Barack Obama’s executive order requiring certain federal contractors and subcontractors to use the Dept. of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system to ensure their workers are legally authorized to work in the U.S. The rule implementing the order goes into effect on Sept. 8 and applies to employers holding federal prime contracts of $100,000 or more or subcontracts worth $3,000 or more. Several business groups, including the Associated Builders and Contractors and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had challenged the requirement, claiming broader use of the E-Verify program would expose contractors to potential

As the U.S. marks the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the White House Council on Environmental Quality has announced the formation of a new federal interagency task force to oversee the massive economic and environmental res­toration work that still remains for the Gulf Coast. Photo: Angele Bergeron / ENR Storms have taken 340 sq miles of land in four years. The task force, announced on Aug. 26 by CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley in an interview with Bloomberg News, is something environmentalists and critics of the Army Corps of Engineers have been seeking since Katrina hit. CEQ so far hasn’t spelled

State transportation officials are hoping Congress will cancel an $8.7-billion rescission of unobligated highway funds that is due to occur on Sept. 30. The Federal Highway Administration notified states on Aug. 25 how large a cut each would incur. California would lose the largest sum, $794 million. In the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users, Congress mandated the rescission to take effect on the measure’s last day, Sept. 30, as a way of trimming the legislation’s overall price tag. Key Senate lawmakers already have indicated they support undoing the highway-fund reduction. But when Congress

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. failed to convince a Minnesota state judge to throw out the claims against the company related to the collapse of the Interstate-35W bridge in Minneapolis two years ago. The company had argued that it didn’t owe Minnesota any of the $37 million the state paid out to victims because the design work performed on the bridge was done more than 40 years earlier. A state court judge in Hennepin County on Aug. 28 ruled that the state’s lawsuit against Jacobs, one of several engineers and contractors targeted, could continue. As the bridge’s principal designer, Jacobs is

White House officials gathered a group of industry, community and union leaders on Aug. 24 to drum up support for a climate-change bill. At that meeting, the White House officials said they hope to work to create incentives to encourage building owners to retrofit facilities to reduce energy costs, says one attendee, Charlie Bacon, CEO of Limbach Facility Services, a Pittsburgh-based mechanical contractor. Although providing little detail, Van Jones, a special advisor on green jobs for the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, said the administration would support more incentives to create jobs and reduce dependence on imported oil. Bacon

The Dept. of Homeland Security says it may rescind its controversial “no match” regulation, which is aimed at cracking down on companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. In an Aug. 19 proposal in the Federal Register, DHS says it is seeking comments through Sept. 18 on its plan to revoke the rule, which the Bush administration issued in 2007. The regulation would have penalized employers who are notified that employee documentation does not match Social Security Administration records. DHS says it instead plans to focus its enforcement efforts through such programs as E-Verify. The 2007 no-match rule never went into

Congressional appropriators are making headway on fiscal year 2010 spending bills, raising hopes that a few of the 12 annual funding measures may be wrapped up before fiscal 2010 starts on Oct. 1. That would be a welcome change from the past few years, when stopgap “continuing resolutions” were the norm. In results so far, the big construction program winner is Environmental Protection Agency water infrastructure, which is heading for a major boost. In the transportation sector, small increases seem likely, except for the high-speed rail area, which could rise sharply. The House has approved all 12 of the appropriations