Ask Your U.S. Representative to Sign Letter Advocating Highway Trust Fund Fix
Call 202.225.3121 to get connected with your member of the House. For several months, ARTBA has been preparing for a scenario through which a comprehensive federal tax bill could also address the Highway Trust Fund’s (HTF) chronic insolvency. Starting this week, industry activists have a new opportunity to help make this a reality. House Highways & Transit Subcommittee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Ranking Member Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) are asking all House members to join them on a letter urging the tax law-writing House Ways & Means Committee to include “a long-term solution to the Highway Trust Fund structural revenue deficit” as part of legislation now being developed to reform the U.S. tax code. Comprehensive tax legislation is a top priority for President Trump and Republican leaders in the House and Senate.
The Graves-Norton letter is particularly well-timed as the Ways & Means Committee is planning to move a tax reform measure through the House in the coming months. Although highway and transit investment has been temporarily stabilized thanks to a $70 billion transfer to the HTF from the federal general fund as part of 2015’s “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act,” this most recent trust fund infusion will be exhausted by the time the FAST Act expires in 2020. At that point, the fund will once again be unable to support existing levels of surface transportation investment. In their letter, Graves and Norton write: “Simply put, if states are unable to rely on timely reimbursements from the HTF for work performed, projects will be halted, improvements to road safety and congestion will be jeopardized, and America’s infrastructure will fall behind the rest of the world.” The letter also notes, “Any HTF solution should entail a long-term, dedicated, user-based revenue stream that can support the transportation infrastructure investment supported by President Trump and Members of Congress from both parties.”
Graves and Norton led a similar letter in 2016 that was signed by 130 House members (56 Republicans and 76 Democrats) after only being circulated for a matter of weeks. The difference this time is that—unlike last year—we have more time to build support and a tax bill is actually expected to be considered in 2017. Please call 202.225.3121 and ask your representative to sign the Graves-Norton letter and demonstrate their support for finally ending the HTF gimmicks and short-term patches, and providing states with real certainty about future federal highway and public transportation investment. The Graves-Norton letter that was sent to all House offices earlier this week and information on how your representative can join this important effort is available here.
Trump's Davis-Bacon Quote Turns Construction Industry Heads
Construction industry stakeholders got a jolt when President Donald Trump recently approached what a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official called a “third rail issue” for building trades unions: changes to the Davis-Bacon Act. Trump said in a New York Times interview published April 5 that he was “going to make an announcement in two weeks” regarding Davis-Bacon. The law requires contractors on federally funded construction projects to pay prevailing wages for a given area. Trump declined to provide further details when prompted by an interviewer. There are not a lot clues for what Trump might have in mind for Davis-Bacon.
The Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board are still lacking key personnel, who normally would have been good indicators of where things are heading. Despite Trump's signal for movement on the law, industry experts believe the idea that he would make any kind of really significant changes to it is really hard to imagine right now. Click here to read this article in its entirety.
OCA Plays Major Role In Utility Damage Prevention Enforcement
With the enactment of Senate Bill 378 (SB 378) in 2015, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) was given the authority to enforce Ohio’s utility damage prevention laws in conjunction with a newly-created panel of experts called the Underground Technical Committee (UTC). Damage prevention laws are designed to maintain public safety when excavating around utility facilities and to ensure the reliability of those utilities. With the new authority provided to the UTC and PUCO, entities such as utilities, excavators, developers and designers, who have duties and obligations under Ohio’s damage prevention law, have a venue to report alleged compliance failures and seek enforcement of those safety laws. The UTC is a 17-member panel of experts in the subject of excavation and utility protection. OCA is well represented on the UTC.
Three of the four excavator representatives on the Committee are affiliated with OCA. Mark Potnick, OCA’s Director of Labor Relations and Safety Affairs is the Senate President appointee; Bill Hocevar, of The Great Lakes Construction Company is the House Minority Leader appointee; and Joe Igel, of the George J. Igel & Company, Inc., is the Speaker of the House appointee, and also serves as the Committee’s Vice-chairman. The law requires that the UTC meet as often as necessary, but at least quarterly. In 2016, it met six times and decided 22 cases. Recently, the Public Utilities Commission prepared and distributed its Damage Prevention Enforcement Annual Report to the General Assembly for the 2016 Calendar Year. Click here to read the full report.
Employers Should Review Form I-9 for Social Security Number Glitch
If you used Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, that you downloaded between Nov. 14 and Nov. 17, 2016, review them to ensure your employees’ Social Security numbers appear correctly in Section 1. There was a glitch when the revised Form I-9 was first published on Nov. 14, 2016. Numbers entered in the Social Security number field were transposed when employees completed and printed Section 1 using a computer. For example, the number 123-45-6789 entered in the Social Security number field would appear as 123-34-6789 once the form printed. Employers using a Form I-9 that contains this glitch should download and save a new Form I-9 at uscis.gov/i-9.
Employers who notice their employees’ Social Security numbers are not written correctly should have their employees draw a line through the transposed Social Security number in Section 1, enter the correct Social Security number, and then initial and date the change. Employers should include a written explanation with Form I-9 about why the correction was made in the event of an audit.
USCIS immediately repaired and reposted the form on Nov. 17, 2016.
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