NEWS » February 23, 2010

Jobs bill moves forward
The U.S. Senate ended the Republican filibuster over a vastly scaled down series of bills that are critical to the construction industry February 22. Five Republicans and two Senate Independents voted with 55 Democrats to pass the measures, which were heavily supported by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.

Senators Feinstein and Boxer supported the effort. Sen. Boxer made passage a key part of her discussion with 200+ attendees at a town hall meeting with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, last Friday at the MTA Board Room. SCCA was the only construction industry representative to attend the meeting. After our comments, Sen. Boxer asked us to testify at a March 16 Washington hearing on the Senate's version of the highway program reauthorization. 

Details of the Senate jobs bill:
Highway programs - Reauthorizes through the end of 2010 the highway trust fund to use gasoline taxes to help state and local governments pay for highway and transit projects. Deposits an additional $20 billion into the trust fund, as a repayment of interest due the fund from previous government borrowing and allows interest payment for any future borrowing.
Equipment write-offs - Permits businesses to write off up to $250,000 in new equipment as a business expense rather than depreciating them over time. Very good news for both contractors and equipment suppliers.
Build America Bonds - Expands the Build America Bonds program to subsidize the interest costs of bonds to include certain school and energy projects. Good news for states like California-the plan allows the feds to pay up to 35 percent of interest on tax-free bonds.
Hiring tax incentives - Exempts employers from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax this year on newly hired workers that have been unemployed for 60 days or more. Provides additional $1,000 tax credit for workers retained for at least a year.

Newly elected Scott Brown (R-MA),), Sue Collins (R-ME), Olympia Snow (R-ME), and retiring senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and George Voinovich (R-OH) voted with the Democrats. Beleaguered Ben Nelson (D-NE) was the only Democrat to vote with the Republicans. Not voting were Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who is hospitalized for stomach cancer and eight Republicans, who ducked the vote. –William E. Davis, Executive Vice President

NEWS » February 12, 2010
Off-Road diesel regulations on hold, says CARB
February 11, CARB sent a release saying they "will issue an enforcement advisory to notify all stakeholders affected by the off-road equipment regulation that effective immediately, and until further notice, no enforcement action will be taken for noncompliance."

The release ended "We need to continue to work toward goals that save us all money in healthcare costs, lost work and school days" even as data linking diesel emissions to poor health (and even death) in Californians is under intense scrutiny, since it was made public that the CARB employee responsible for the assertion was not qualified to do so.

"Based on this release" says William Davis, Executive Vice President, SCCA, "we can easily infer that what CARB gives, CARB can take away. We will remain vigilant and involved because they are feeling the heat from industry, media and the political folk and want nothing more than for us to go away. This will not happen."

NEWS » February 4, 2010
EPA's moving the goal posts...again!
Today, SCCA had the honor of being the sole representative of the construction industry at an air quality public hearing in Sacramento held by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The topic was "Reconsideration of the 2008 National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone."  This means EPA is moving the goal posts on ozone regulation just two years after it tightened the standards last.

This is standard practice for the regulatory agencies – once they have the ball moving, they keep it moving and when they get close to their announced goal, they announce a new one. The room was crowded – 20 representatives from the Sierra Club, a dozen from the American Lung Association, and singles and pairs from every other environmental group you can imagine. This is important to our industry because the new standard will cause 96 percent of the counties in the country to fail to meet the new goal, requiring reductions in business activity, transportation and denial of funding for new highway projects. –William Davis, Executive Vice President, SCCA

NEWS » January 29, 2010
CARB Approves Limited One-Year Extension for Tier 0 Portable Engines
At the CARB January 28, 2010 hearing, the Board approved the staff recommendation to allow for continued use of certain non-certified Tier 0 engines one more year. The amendments also reduce recordkeeping and reporting requirements for certified portable engines and make additional modifications to the Portable Equipment Registration Program (PERP), the Portable Engine Air Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) and changes to the Off-Road Regulation to include dual-engine water well drilling rigs, as was previously done for two-engines cranes.

Amendments allow companies to choose a diesel engine of any size or up to five diesel engines not to exceed a combined total of 500 bhp to operate until December 31, 2010. These engines have to be currently registered in PERP or permitted by a local air district.

At the hearing, CIAQC argued that the one-year extension should not be limited to small fleets (those with 25 portable engines or less) and the requirement for rental companies to log on a monthly basis the location of engines out on rent is an unnecessary burden. CARB agreed and directed staff to make appropriate changes through the 15-Day Notice process. When the forthcoming 15-Day Notice is issued, CIAQC and others will have the opportunity to comment on the new language. To help accomplish the changes for the monthly rental engine location requirements, CARB directed staff to work with the local air districts on how best to address this moving forward.