While construction employment increased between April 2009 and 2010 in more metro areas - 17 - than at any point during the past 12 months, the industry is still shedding workers in most areas, AGC said Friday.

"Construction employment is clearly stabilizing in a growing list of metro areas," said Ken Simonson, the association's chief economist. "Unfortunately, too many construction workers are losing jobs in too many metro areas."

Click here to read the release and view the latest city-by-city construction employment figures. The news was covered by Business First Louisville, New Mexico Business Weekly and Pittsburgh Business Times, among others.

The Transportation Construction Coalition, co-chaired by AGC, is meeting today in Washington, D.C. to urge lawmakers to pass a multi-year program to fund critical highway, bridge, transit and aviation construction programs. The group also placed an advertisement in Capitol Hill's Roll Call newspaper.

For more information, contact Brian Deery at (703) 837-5319 or deeryb@agc.org.

AGC alerted federal and state officials late last week to growing shortages of highway paint and has begun working to address the situation.  As the New York Times notes in its story, and ABC News notes in its story, we have been meeting with state DOTs and the Federal Highway Administration to make sure the shortages do not cause delays in needed highway construction projects.

Already states like Texas have announced that they will use their limited stockpiles of paint to add lane marking to newly completed construction projects and will temporarily forgo touching up lane markings already in place.  Since highway projects aren't technically finished until the lanes are painted, we're also working to make sure contractors aren't penalized if they finish work but the lanes can't be painted on time.

Engineering News-Record made the paint shortage it's cover story. The news was also covered by CNN Money, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, NPR, ABC World News, Dayton Daily News and Wisconsin State Journal.

Increases in stimulus-funded projects and growing demand for single family construction helped boost monthly construction employment in 29 states between March and April, AGC chief economist Ken Simonson noted in his analysis of the latest federal employment data. “A gradual turnaround appears to be taking hold after years of construction employment declines,” said Simonson. “As more stimulus projects get underway and single-family housing starts pick up, we are likely to see the number of states with year-over-year increases grow.”

Read more about the new data from AGC's news release here.  The news was covered by the Wichita Business Journal, Honolulu Star Bulletin,  Sacramento Business Journal and Buffalo's WKBW covered the story.

AGC today announced that the Senate climate change bill neglects efforts to cut traffic congestion and breaks a decades-long promise that transportation user fees will be dedicated to financing highway and transit improvements.

On Tuesday, AGC and transportation partners sent a letter to Senators Kerry and Lieberman, warning that their bill fails to provide enough funding to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent or pay for a multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill.

The Kerry-Lieberman bill, The American Power Act, places new pollution fees on the gasoline and diesel fuels used by cars and trucks without returning most of the revenue generated from that fee to improving our transportation system. AGC estimates these fees would generate at least $19.5 billion in revenue and divert at least 77 percent of the funds from on-road fuel consumption away from transportation investment.  The bill will allocate $6.25 billion annually for transportation.  Of that  $6.25 billion, $2.5 billion would go to the Highway Trust Fund - with a mandate to set aside funding for projects that decrease greenhouse gas emissions - while the rest of the money will be equally divided between the competitive federal TIGER grants and local land-use planning, as laid-out in the CLEAN-TEA bill.

AGC was quoted in a number of publications, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Engineering News-Record.

Last week, AGC issued this statement in response to the bill.

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

Construction contractors continue to be squeezed between rising materials costs and falling output prices, according to AGC's new analysis of materials costs. AGC noted that even as the producer price index leapt in April for key construction components, the amount contractors charge for construction services remains depressed.

Read AGC's press release here.

AGC responded Wednesday to the proposed Senate climate bill, noting that it will make it more difficult to cut pollution and emissions by establishing new regulatory obstacles and robbing transportation funds.

AGC released a statement: "Improving the efficiency of our built environment - including commercial buildings, transportation infrastructure and water systems - presents one of the greatest opportunities to reduce power consumption and cut greenhouse gas emissions."

Read the full statement here, and more details on the bill here.  Read AGC's plan for a green future here.

The news was covered in the Daily Reporter and Today's Trucking, among other publications.

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

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving forward with its commitment to propose and take final action by November 2012 on a first-time national rule that would set new standards to control stormwater discharges from developed sites.  As a result of AGC's advocacy work, EPA has decided to not require contractors to respond to a lengthy, mandatory survey that will guide and inform future requirements pertaining to long-term stormwater control practices, recognizing that contractors are not responsible for designing, financing, operating or maintaining post-construction (permanent) stormwater controls.

EPA has initiated a national rulemaking to establish a program to reduce stormwater discharges from new development and redevelopment and make other regulatory improvements to strengthen its stormwater program.  In October 2009, EPA published a Federal Register notice announcing its intent to submit an Information Collection Request (ICR) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to get approval to distribute a questionnaire to owners, operators, developers, and contractors of developed sites ("Industry Questionnaire"), as well as two other surveys directed at municipalities and states.  Acting on AGC's recommendations, EPA has significantly revised its mandatory questionnaires and is now proposing six separate questionnaires (that are focused on gathering data about current stormwater management practices from specific groups); however, none of the revised surveys are directed at general contractors.  AGC's work is sure to save the industry both time and money, as many members estimated that it would have taken a construction firm between 120 to 150 hours to complete the EPA survey.

As previously reported in AGC's Environmental Observer, late last year, EPA requested the construction industry's feedback on a draft of an "Industry Questionnaire" that the Agency had planned to distribute this spring to collect detailed financial and technical information to guide and inform a new stormwater runoff rulemaking. The proposed Industry Questionnaire would have required certain general contractors (i.e., those selected by EPA to complete it) to provide detailed technical information for up to 10 projects completed in 2009, including project type/size, stormwater management controls and associated costs, discharge permit forms, as well as company-wide financial information spanning the last five years.  Construction companies would have spent significant time, energy and money completing the survey.

AGC provided extensive comments explaining to EPA that the proposed Information Collection Request was: premature and unauthorized by law, as it presumes regulatory authority that does not exist; overly burdensome and misdirected, as it misapprehends the role that contractor's play in the real estate development process; and  ineffective in gathering data EPA believes it requires.

AGC met with EPA staff in early January to discuss the most efficient method for the Agency to obtain the information it deems necessary to perform its function. As the newly proposed ICR documents show, and as a result of AGC's input and outreach, EPA has correctly determined that general contractors should not be subject to future information collection requests associated with post-construction issues.  EPA is accepting public comment until June 9 - Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0817 - at http://www.regulations.gov.

Stakeholder Input on Stormwater Rulemaking

In related news, EPA recently held five listening sessions in January 2010 in select cities to inform the public and solicit feedback on upcoming rules to strengthen the national stormwater program.  Many AGC members "listened in" to these sessions and a few gave 3-minute statements; AGC helped to coordinate industry's message and submitted a written statement on Feb. 26.  AGC's statement explained the following points:

• The construction contractor's role in real estate development;
• The construction contractor's role in post-construction stormwater management;
• Post-construction stormwater management does not fit in current NPDES construction general permit program;
• Existing regulatory programs adequately control post-construction discharges; and
• Post-construction discharges are best addressed by local authorities.

More information is on EPA's website.

For additional information, contact Leah Pilconis at pilconisl@agc.org or (703) 837-5332.

New federal employment figures show the construction industry added 40,000 new jobs in March and April as the number of stimulus-funded projects underway continues to grow.  The numbers were even better on the nonresidential side, with the industry adding 24,600 jobs in April and 36,500 jobs in March.  On a media call to discuss the latest figures, AGC's chief economist told over 20 reporters that "the good news is the stimulus has stemmed the losses in construction employment for now; the bad news is the stimulus is temporary while the construction downturn will be protracted."

Click here for AGC's press release on the latest figures. Listen to the call here.

The news was covered by Wichita Eagle, NJ Biz, Sacramento Business Journal, BNA's Construction Labor Report and Better Roads, among others.

Madison, Wisconsin OSHA area director Kim Stille warned Daily Reporter that her agency is unprepared to enforce the Protecting Americas Workers Act, and that it would undermine productive relationships the agency has built with construction firms that have helped cut the construction fatality rate nearly in half over the past decade.

Read the article here.

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