AGC member Art Daniel (AR Daniel Construction Services, Inc., Cedar Hill, Texas) explained the uncertainty many small businesses face in a Reuters article on Thursday.

Read the article here.

For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5310 or turmailb@agc.org.

AGC's Ken Simonson talked to CNBC News about what's in store for the economy, including the construction industry, in 2010.  Simonson discussed the results of a National Association for Business Economics survey. Watch the video here.

For more information, contact Ken Simonson at simonsonk@agc.org.

Left to right: AGC's Marco Giamberardino, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Long Island Contractors Association executive director Marc Herbst, and Governor Ed Rendell (D-Pa.).

On January 21, a broad coalition of members of Congress, industry experts, and stakeholders called on Congress and the Obama Administration to create a National Infrastructure Bank to help fund infrastructure projects of regional and national importance.  AGC attended the event and stressed that the infrastructure bank concept must be part of a larger comprehensive approach to tackling infrastructure investment, including robust multi-year funding and significant regulatory reforms. It must also be created separate and apart from jobs legislation currently being drafted in the Senate.

The proposed National Infrastructure Bank would be designed to help improve the nation's roads and highways, bridges, ports, rail (freight and passenger), drinking and waste water treatment plants, smart grid, broadband and schools. AGC believes that an infrastructure bank should be capitalized with general fund revenue to assist individual or groups of states with financing, particularly for mega projects. Infrastructure bank financing should be available as low interest loans to help states finance projects or to assist in leveraging private funds.

For more information, contact Marco Giamberardino at (703) 837-5325 or giamberm@agc.org.

For the first time since the start of the economic downturn, every state and the District of Columbia reported losing construction jobs over the past twelve months, according to AGC's analysis of state-by-state employment data released Friday. The analysis found few signs of a construction industry recovery with only six states reporting construction job increases between November and December 2009.

Read the press release here. The news was covered by the Memphis Business Journal, Idaho Business Review and Dayton Business Journal.

For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5310 or turmailb@agc.org.

Public agencies have been reporting for more than a year that they are paying less for school buildings and other facilities than they had been. But few governments seem to have stepped up their construction programs to take advantage of the price breaks.

Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., is an exception. "Montgomery County's government would get a $4 billion jolt over the next six years under a capital spending plan detailed Friday by County Executive Isiah Leggett," the Washington Post reported on January 16. "The proposal represents a nearly 7 percent boost in spending…With interest rates low and construction companies hungry for work, Montgomery officials said, the county should take advantage of the community's general affluence to press ahead with its capital priorities, especially those affecting education….Constructing a new Paint Branch [High School, which began this month], for example, is expected to cost $20 million to $30 million less than what was spent on a similar school that was built recently, schools officials said. The county can build an elementary school with the difference, they said."

An AGC survey of nearly 700 contractors, released on January 20, confirmed that the decline in building costs reflects more than a dip in materials prices. About 81 percent of the respondents said they cut profit margins for their 2009 bids, and 11 percent were willing to take a loss. That's a great opportunity for both public and private owners who are willing to act promptly. But most contractors cannot afford to operate at a loss for long. By later this year, contractors will either be out of business or charging more.

The drop in materials costs may soon run its course, as well. The producer price index (PPI) for inputs to construction industries, a weighted average of materials used in all types of projects plus items such as diesel fuel that are consumed during construction, rose 0.2 percent in December before seasonal adjustment and 0.4 percent from a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. The December-to-December increase was the mildest since 1999, but December was also the first month since February that the construction PPI did not decline from year-ago levels.

Meanwhile, the PPI for new school building construction, which measures contractors' overhead and profit as well as materials costs, fell 2.4 percent from December 2008 to December 2009. That was the first 12-month drop since the index was introduced in 2006. In other words, contractors are still lowering their prices but are starting to pay more for the inputs they use - an unsustainable squeeze play.

Owners should take heed: the double delight of plentiful bidders and falling materials prices appears poised to end soon. If they want the most value for their construction dollar, now is the time to buy.

For more information, contact Ken Simonson at simonsonk@agc.org.

AGC today released a construction industry outlook that finds the stimulus the lone bright spot in an industry where nine in ten contractors say there will be no recovery in 2010.  The survey of AGC members also found that fewer contractors plan to purchase construction equipment and doubt they will be able to hire new staff this year.

See the full news release, as well as the survey data, here. The news was covered by the LA Times, Reuters, Seattle Times, Miami Herald and Omaha World Herald, among others.

For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5310 or turmailb@agc.org.

As Democratic Congressional leaders race to merge competing Senate and House health care reform proposals into one package, small employers in the construction industry remain the only employers explicitly targeted with removal from small business exemptions. All businesses with less than 50 employees are exempted from the employer mandate except construction firms.

The Las Vegas Sun explored this issue in today's business section, and included interviews with AGC and the Las Vegas Chapter of AGC. AGC has also created a letter on the Legislative Action Center for members to use to urge elected officials to remove the provision from the final bill.

For more information, contact Jim Young at (202) 547-0133 or youngj@agc.org.

AGC responded to EPA's proposed rule to tighten the air quality standards for ground-level ozone this week in Engineering News-Record and AGC's Environmental Observer, and noted that the rule has resulted in restrictions on the operations of construction equipment around the country.

AGC's Leah Pilconis commented on the rule in Engineering News-Record, and provided more detailed information in the environmental newsletter.

For more information, contact Leah Pilconis at pilconisl@agc.org.

Ken Simonson, AGC's chief economist, issued a statement yesterday in response to an Associated Press story that looked at the impact of stimulus-funded highway projects on overall construction employment.

Simonson stated that the article's fundamental assumptions are flawed because it is impossible to measure the impact of $4 billion by looking at overall employment figures for an industry that experienced a $137 billion drop in activity.  See Simonson's statement here, and more detailed analysis here.

The news was covered by The Oklahoman, Watertown Daily Times and Daily Journal of Commerce.

For more information, contact Ken Simonson at (703) 837-5313 or simonsonk@agc.org.

Citing new state data showing California's off-road diesel equipment operators will be well below new emissions targets for years to come, AGC called on state officials to immediately order at least a two-year delay for their new off-road "diesel retrofit" rule  in an emergency petition filed Monday. The delay is needed to avoid unnecessary losses and layoffs within the state's hard hit construction industry while the California Air Resources Board continues to review its diesel rules.

AGC originally petitioned the Board to amend the rule in December 2008. At the board's request, AGC voluntarily deferred action on that original petition pending further research board staff said it needed to conduct. Since that research will continue beyond the rule's implementation date, the AGC decided to file today's emergency petition for interim relief.

Read the press release here. The news was covered by the San Diego Daily Transcript.

For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5364 or turmailb@agc.org.