The fallout over a costly 2010 General Services Administration conference continues to roll over the agency, as congressional committees grilled current and former GSA officials about their roles in the spending scandal.At the first of several hearings on GSA, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on April 16 heard a former acting GSA regional administrator and key figure in the controversy, Jeffrey Neely, decline to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment rights six times. Lawmakers focused on an $822,000 GSA Public Buildings Service (PBS) conference that an April 2 inspector general's report termed "excessive and wasteful." The day the
Related Links: Results of AGC safety survey DOT Secretary LaHood's blog on work zone safety More than two-thirds of highway contractors responding to a new Associated General Contractors of America survey say that motor vehicles crashed into their work zones over the past 12 months and almost one-fifth reported construction-worker fatalities in those accidents.AGC released the survey on April 23, near the start of National Work Zone Awareness Week, a joint industry-government effort to put a spotlight on the dangers on highway job sites and reduce fatalities and injuries.There has been progress. According to U.S. Dept. of Transportation statistics, there
The House has approved a further three-month extension for highway and transit programs with a provision to clear the way for construction of the Keystone XL crude pipeline.The bill, approved on April 18 on a 293-127 vote, will serve as a vehicle to begin negotiations with the Senate on what construction industry officials hope will be at least a moderately long-term measure.In that House-Senate conference committee, lawmakers will attempt to reconcile differences between the newly passed three-month House measure and the $109-billion, two-year bill that the Senate approved in March.Surface transportation programs are in no immediate danger of shutting down;
Courtesy of AFL-CIO McGarvey, BCTD secretary-treasurer since 2005, was Governing Board of Presidents' unanimous choice as new president. Related Links: BCTD announcement of Sean McGarvey's election as president ENR obituary for Mark Ayers The AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Dept. has elected Sean McGarvey, its secretary-treasurer, as its new president. The BCTD said the April 16 vote of its Governing Board of Presidents was unanimous.McGarvey, who is about 50, succeeds Mark Ayers, who died suddenly on April 8 at age 63. Ayers had led the building trades group since 2007. The organization’s board also voted unanimously to give Ayers the
Competition remains intense for the Dept. of Transportation's TIGER grants, which help fund road, rail and other projects deemed to have major regional or national impacts.DOT reported on April 5 that it had received 703 applications, totaling $10.2 billion, for the 2012 round of its Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program—far more than the $500 million it has to award. Applications flowed in from every state, as well as the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.The new TIGER competition is the fourth since 2009. In the first three rounds, DOT received 3,348 applications totaling more than $95 billion. It awarded
A partisan fight over the House GOP-written fiscal 2013 budget has escalated as Election Day nears. President Obama attacked the bill as "so far to the right it makes the Contract With America look like the New Deal." House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the bill's architect, fired back, saying Obama's budget plans were "reckless" and that the president "chose to duck and run" on the economy.The budget resolution, passed by the House on March 29 by a 228-191 vote, is non-binding and seen as having no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But the budget will affect key House
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) hopes to pass a two-year highway-funding bill which includes provisions to increase domestic oil and gas drilling. Just two days before a threatened March 31 shutdown of highway programs, Congress approved yet another stopgap that will keep surface-transportation funds moving, but only through June 30. While construction and state transportation officials were relieved that the bill, which President Obama signed on March 30, averted a funding cutoff, they were unhappy that Congress still couldn't approve a long-term highway-transit measure.The 90-day stopgap is the ninth since Sept. 30, 2009, when the
Related Links: Bureau of Labor Statistics release, with data tables Analysis from ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu Analysis from AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson ENR story on Feb 2012 construction jobless rate Construction’s unemployment rate rose slightly, to 17.2% in March, from February’s 17.1%, as the industry lost an estimated 7,000 jobs last month. But the rate was better than March 2011's mark of 20%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest monthly status report on the employment picture, released on April 6, showed that jobs lost in the buildings-construction sector outweighed gains in the heavy-civil and residential specialty trades segments.Architectural and
Related Links: Dept. of Justice press release The former chief executive of a Pennsylvania company that made concrete bridge beams has been convicted on multiple counts of fraud and money laundering in what the U.S. Dept. of Transportation says is the largest reported Disadvantaged Business Enterprise fraud in the department’s 45-year history.The Justice Dept. said a jury in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg on April 5 found Joseph W. Nagle guilty on 26 of the 30 charges in a federal indictment. Nagle (pronounced NOGG-ull) was president, CEO and part-owner of Schuylkill Products Inc. (SPI), Cressona, Pa., and its CDS Engineering
Related Links: Report by GSA Inspector General's office The head of the U.S. General Services Administration, Martha Johnson, resigned on April 2 and earlier removed the leader of GSA's Public Buildings Service and another senior official from their jobs, an Obama administration official says. The shakeup was sparked by an inspector general’s report blasting GSA for “excessive and wasteful” spending and failing to follow federal contracting rules on a 2010 conference whose price tag exceeded $822,000. The Obama administration official said the two GSA executives removed were PBS Commissioner Robert Peck and Stephen Leeds, senior counselor to Johnson. The administration official
