Government Affairs

Background

In recent years, drones have evolved into a versatile tool for the law enforcement, military and industrial sectors. Specific to construction, firms have integrated drones into critical tasks including jobsite inspections, site mapping, safety compliance and progress tracking. However, with China producing the overwhelming majority of drones in use in the United States, Congress and the White House’s national security concerns have prompted actions to review and limit foreign drone use.

Beginning Dec. 22, 2025, federal funding may no longer be used to acquire or operate drones produced by covered foreign entities, including DJI and Autel Robotics. This requirement was included in H.R.2670, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024.

Further, Congress directed the appropriate national security agency to review whether DJI and Autel Robotics pose an unacceptable national security risk in H.R.5009, the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025. The review is due by Dec. 23, 2025, and could result in both companies being listed on the Federal Communications Commission's Covered List if the review finds risk or is not completed by the deadline. Notably, this could prohibit the sale or import of drones from these manufacturers.

On June 6, President Donald Trump issued two executive orders: Unleashing American Drone Dominance and Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty. These orders aim to counter foreign drone threats and accelerate domestic drone production. In concurrence with Unleashing American Drone Dominance, the Federal Aviation Administration issued the Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations proposed rule. This rulemaking would enable certificated and permitted operators to fly drones beyond the visual line of sight without a waiver in defined operating environments.

Desired Outcome

ABC supports efforts by the president and Congress to increase domestic drone production and agrees that national security should be our nation’s No. 1 priority. By supporting domestic drone manufacturing and construction industry drone acquisitions, policymakers can scale U.S. drone production and innovation while ensuring that America’s infrastructure projects continue to move forward. ABC looks forward to continuing to work with the FAA and Congress on U.S. drone policy.

Background

Despite being litigated for years, the Biden administration’s NLRB has revived controversial policy from the Obama era in the form of its Representation-Case Procedures final rule. The direct final rule, issued without notice and the opportunity to comment, essentially restores provisions of the “ambush” election rule of 2014 and rescinds the remaining ABC-supported provisions of the 2019 final rule. The rule will apply to representation petitions filed on or after Dec. 26, 2023, and employers will have less time to respond to representation petitions.

To learn about the changes included in the 2023 final rule, see ABC’s Newsline article on Sept. 5. See also the NLRB comparison chart of prior and new Representation Case Procedures as well as the fact sheet for more information. Additionally, ABC’s general counsel Littler Mendelson has prepared an analysis of the final rule.

The Trump-era 2019 final rule implemented commonsense policies to ensure workers were given a sufficient amount of time to be fully informed during an organizing campaign as well as protect employers’ due process rights during the process.

ABC vehemently opposed the 2014 rule and filed a legal challenge against it. 

Desired Outcome

The Board’s efforts to again reduce the amount of time between when a union files a representation petition and an election takes place imposes unnecessary urgency on employers, leaving them susceptible to violations of their due process rights and deprives employees of the time needed to become fully informed before deciding whether or not to unionize.

Ultimately, the rule infringes on the rights of employers and employees to a fair pre-election process and will have a particularly adverse impact on small construction firms, which typically do not employ legal counsel.

ABC urges the NLRB to rescind the 2023 Representation-Case Procedures final rule.

Background

Several presidential administrations and members of Congress have attempted to implement blacklisting policies that would condition federal contract eligibility on alleged violations of labor laws. These efforts have failed for good reason: They threaten contractor due process rights, introduce excessive subjectivity and layer unnecessary bureaucracy and cost onto the federal acquisition process.

Federal labor laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, Davis-Bacon Act and regulations surrounding overtime pay, independent contracting and joint employment are complex and frequently revised. These evolving rules create compliance challenges, particularly for small businesses, which often lack the resources to navigate ever-changing regulations.

By implementing flawed blacklisting proposals, allegations could jeopardize a company’s ability to compete for federal contracts regardless of merit. Contractors could also face substantial penalties for failing to disclose these alleged violations, even before any official finding of wrongdoing.

In a time where there is a lack of small business participation in federal contracting, blacklisting policies further discourage small businesses from pursuing federal contracts; threaten the livelihood of millions of Americans employed by federal contractors; and expose taxpayers and businesses to increased costs and risk.

Desired Outcome

ABC supports efforts to ensure compliance with labor laws and a level playing field for federal contractors; however, flawed blacklisting proposals will override current, proven compliance, suspension and debarment processes, create dangerous incentives for initiating baseless allegations against contractors and disincentivize small businesses from bidding on federal contracts.

Background

In July 2022, Congress enacted the CHIPS Act of 2022 (Division A of P.L. 117-167), which was signed into law by former President Joe Biden on Aug. 9, 2022.

The act appropriates funding for the CHIPS for America provisions enacted in Title XCIX of the William M. “Mac” Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (2021 NDAA, P.L. 116-283). It also revised the 2021 NDAA CHIPS provisions and established three additional funds to support efforts that seek to address semiconductor-related challenges in defense, workforce and education, and international technology security and innovation. In total, the act appropriates $52.7 billion for semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, workforce training and education, and collaboration and coordination with allied and other friendly countries for FY2022-FY2027.

Of interest to the construction industry, the CHIPS Act establishes and appropriates $39 billion to a CHIPS for America Fund to bolster semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the United States by providing financial incentives for building, expanding and equipping domestic fabrication facilities and companies in the semiconductor supply chain. The fund also provides $11 billion for semiconductor R&D activities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and in partnership with U.S. industry through a National Semiconductor Technology Center, a National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program and the establishment of up to three Manufacturing USA institutes.

In addition, a key piece of the CHIPS Act is a new tax credit with a $24 billion price tag. The Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit is equal to 25% of eligible investment projects and incentivizes building and expanding domestic semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The tax credit will provide a direct-pay, refundable credit for facilities with a primary purpose of making semiconductors or semiconductor manufacturing equipment. It applies to tangible property that can be amortized and depreciated that is placed in service between Jan. 1, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2026. Projects already underway may qualify.

Desired Outcome

Applicants seeking CHIPS Act funding must develop a Construction Workforce Plan to recruit, hire, train and retain a diverse and skilled construction workforce and deliver a project on time. To purportedly achieve this goal, both NOFO's strongly encourage applicants to require controversial project labor agreements. The strong push for CHIPS Act funding applicants to mandate anti-competitive and inflationary PLAs on CHIPS Act projects undermines congressional authority because no such language was included in the CHIPS Act legislative text. An ABC-led coalition of construction industry stakeholders fought hard to keep PLA mandates out of the CHIPS Act.

Contractors and developers must also be aware that Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements apply to all CHIPS Act-funded construction projects. This presents additional compliance risks, increased costs and may discourage competition from small businesses and large businesses unfamiliar with Davis-Bacon Act regulations that are typically limited to government-procured and financed projects.

It is ABC’s hope that merit shop contractors have an opportunity to participate in CHIPS production without undue regulatory burdens. Visit ABC’s CHIPS resources and guidance webpage for more information.

Background:

The Davis-Bacon Act, in conjunction with related acts specific to various procurement authorities, requires contractors’ payment of administratively determined minimum wage rates, or “prevailing wages,” for construction labor on projects exceeding $2,000 in cost to the federal government.

The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor administers this program via a statistical wage determination process that purports to compute trade-specific regional market rates for construction labor from voluntary surveys of general contractors. The WHD considers any wage reported paid to 30% or more of the workers within a particular trade to “prevail” for that trade within a geographic unit. Where no uniform rate is reported paid to one-third of the workers within a trade, an average of the reported rates prevails. Because survey respondents who are party to collective bargaining agreements typically report a uniform collectively bargained wage rate, prevailing wage rates effectively standardize payment of union wages across all bidders for covered projects. Further wage inflation arises from methodological failure to segregate urban from rural samples, and from unionized contractors’ overrepresentation among WHD survey respondents. According to a 2011 Government Accountability Office analysis, collectively bargained rates prevailed in 63% of federal determinations despite nonunionized contractors’ composition of the overwhelming majority of the construction workforce.

The DBA imposes onerous reporting, recordkeeping and other compliance obligations, including with complex classification rules that prescribe the tasks performable by covered worker in various trades. Where union wage rates prevail, these classification rules are derived from collective bargaining provisions intended to inflate the labor intensity of the project and are inconsistent with merit shop management practices. Further, these classification rules align with CBAs that are often not available publicly. Because the DBA imposes significant criminal and civil penalties, including for non-wage procedural violations, the DBA exposes merit shop contractors to disproportionate risk.

Independent investigators consistently document significant inflationary effects arising from prevailing wage requirements. For example, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found prevailing wage requirements increased costs up to 37% on multifamily residential projects funded by federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits between 1996 and 2022, preventing construction of 3,100 housing units per year under mid-range estimates.

Solution:

ABC supports the full repeal of the DBA and related Acts and supports legislative and regulatory reforms to mitigate prevailing wage requirements’ harm to taxpayers and discriminatory effects on the overwhelming majority of the construction industry. ABC urges federal policymakers to replicate successful and continuing prevailing wage reform and repeal efforts on the state level, which have yielded significant taxpayer savings on affordable housing, infrastructure and other critical public projects.

Background:

In a win for ABC members, on Aug. 20, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas blocked the Federal Trade Commission from implementing its rule to ban noncompete agreements. The court found that the FTC lacked statutory authority to promulgate the rule and that the rule is arbitrary and capricious. This means the rule will not be enforced or otherwise take effect on Sept. 4, 2024.

As expected, on Oct. 18, the FTC appealed the court’s Aug. 20 decision. ABC will continue to monitor the litigation and provide any updates in Newsline. But for now, the Aug. 20 decision will remain in effect during the pendency of the appeal.

On July 3, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a limited preliminary injunction and stay of the FTC’s rule.

On May 14, ABC joined a broad group of trade associations in filing an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief against the FTC’s final rule to ban noncompete clauses.

Desired Outcome:

ABC is extremely pleased with the court’s decision and has consistently stated that ABC members have valid business justifications for utilizing noncompete agreements, such as protecting confidential information and intellectual property. The new rule would have had a harmful effect on member companies as well as their employees, forcing employers to rework their compensation and talent strategies.

ABC urges the FTC to rescind its 2024 final rule to ban noncompete agreements.

Background

Providing quality health care benefits is a top priority for ABC and its member companies.

ABC advocates for policies that would ensure employer-sponsored coverage is strengthened and remains a viable, affordable option for millions of hardworking Americans and their families.

ABC, as a member of the Partnership for Employer-Sponsored Coverage, encourages Congress to consider the following principles and priorities that are important for ensuring employment-based health coverage thrives:

• Preserve and strengthen employer-sponsored health coverage;
• Address medical costs and challenges to help keep coverage affordable;
• Uphold the current tax-treatment of employer-sponsored coverage;
• Provide employers with compliance relief from burdensome regulations governing health coverage; and
• Promote innovations and diversity of plan designs and offerings for employees.

ABC will continue to oppose:

• Federal government mandates that force employers to offer a certain level of health care coverage or be subject to penalties,
• Government takeover of the health care system that would end employer-sponsored health care coverage and impose new tax mandates on employers and employees, and
• Tax increases that could hinder reinvestment and job creation in the construction industry.

Desired Outcome

ABC looks forward to working with the 119th Congress in a bipartisan manner to develop and implement health care policies.

Background

The U.S. construction industry faces a workforce shortage of nearly half a million workers. This shortage risks jeopardizing the ability of contractors to build and improve America’s infrastructure.

ABC members prioritize local workforce development and recruitment. However, the supply of workers often falls short of jobsite demand, making foreign-born workers a critical segment of the construction workforce.

ABC agrees that securing the U.S. border should be the nation’s top priority and supports the administration’s original intent to deport criminals, lawbreakers and bad actors. However, indiscriminate enforcement actions have created instability for law-abiding workers and employers alike. Specifically, increasingly aggressive and haphazard immigration enforcement, including jobsite raids, has sown fear and confusion, discouraging even legally authorized workers from showing up to work.

Temporary worker programs such as the H-2B visa and protections for Temporary Protected Status recipients offer partial relief. However, these programs are plagued by bureaucratic complexity, low visa caps and political uncertainty. Specifically, employers relying on H-2B workers face high costs, limited availability, and annual dependency on congressional action to increase quotas. At the same time, TPS worker status may remain fluid due to shifting policy and geopolitical factors.

Desired Outcome

ABC welcomes the opportunity to work with the Trump administration and Congress on workforce solutions to strengthen all business sectors and safeguard communities. It is paramount that lawmakers address the construction industry’s immediate workforce needs and provide certainty for the foreign-born workers who want to continue to work here legally and build our infrastructure.

To maintain the integrity of U.S. immigration law while providing relief to workers, ABC urges the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to secure the border and issue guidance regarding businesses' obligations to reverify employment eligibility or, if necessary, allow some limited transition time to terminate employees affected by recent immigration policy changes.

In addition, ABC encourages Congress to advance a construction-specific Market-Based Merit Visa System. This system would evaluate market needs and provide workers with a portable solution that allows them to move from employer to employer. At the same time, it would require workers to return to their home country when their visa expires and encourages those seeking to immigrate to America to go through the proper channels.

ABC also supports the expansion of the H-2B visa program and increased quotas for employment-based immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, and continued protections for workers with Temporary Protected Status and those under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, who have long contributed to the construction workforce.

ABC will continue to work with Congress and the administration to stabilize and improve our nation’s immigration system and support well-paying jobs for America’s workers.

Background:

Project labor agreements or PLAs are pre-hire contracts establishing the terms and conditions of employment between unions and an employer. They authorize signatory unions to enforce standardized minimum collective bargaining provisions and to negotiate additional trade-specific provisions as the bargaining representative for workers employed within the project scope by contractors and subcontractors.

While PLAs do not explicitly prohibit nonunion offers for covered projects, they require adherence to provisions with operational and cost implications so burdensome for nonunion firms that nonunion bids are effectively precluded. Because PLAs prevent otherwise qualified bidders from competing for covered projects, they substantially increase taxpayer costs.

PLAs significantly complicate nonunion contractors’ preparation of bids, as essential terms and conditions of employment, work rules and other fundamental parameters for the project price are generally not established within the text of the PLA, but rather incorporated by reference to separate nonpublic union agreements. Government-mandated PLAs generally provide unions with a first right of refusal to determine which contractors can bid on public projects, effectively privatizing public procurement.

PLAs generally require contractors to staff projects via union hiring halls and prohibit or rigorously limit employment of nonunion workers, including apprentices, for covered work. These restrictions prevent contractors from confidently pricing complex work with an unfamiliar workforce. PLAs generally standardize union work rules that significantly limit the diversity of tasks performable by workers, inflating the labor intensity of the project and undermining nonunion bidders’ productivity advantages. PLAs further require contractors’ agreement to deduct from wages or otherwise tender unspecified financial payments to union pension and benefit trust funds, duplicating nonwage labor costs for nonunion contractors simultaneously obligated to sustain employer contributions to separate nonunion plans.

PLAs generally obligate general contractors to guarantee all subcontractors’ adherence in the terms of the PLAs, significantly restricting the availability of nonunion subcontractors and thereby increasing project costs. For example, a 2024 RAND Corporation study found PLAs increased costs on $1.2 billion in affordable housing in Los Angeles County by 21%, or the equivalent of 1 out of every 5 units that could have been built without a PLA.

Desired Outcome:

ABC urges President Trump to rescind President Biden’s Executive Order 14063, which requires PLAs on federal projects of $35 million or more, and to issue a new executive order ensuring that federal and federally assisted contracts are awarded through a fair and competitive bidding process that allows all qualified contractors to compete on a level playing field based on merit, experience, quality and safety to deliver the highest-quality projects at the best cost. ABC further urges Congress to pass the Fair and Open Competition Act (H.R. 2126/S.1064) to prohibit mandatory PLAs on federal and federally funded projects. ABC estimates that elimination of federal PLA requirements and incentives would yield $10 billion in annual taxpayer savings.