AGC Works to Block Harmful Construction Policies in Annual Defense Bill

AGC is advocating to block the inclusion of policies that would negatively impact military construction contractors in a final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill—a must-pass, annual defense policy bill. The House of Representatives passed its version of the NDAA in September, but Senate floor debate on its version has stalled as Senators have struggled to reach an agreement on the amendment process. Among other things, these policies, if included in the final bill, would:

• require prime contractors and subcontractors to be licensed in the state of the military construction project;
• establish local hiring preferences;
• impose subjective criteria into the suspension and debarment process that would make it easier to blacklist contractors; and
• require contractors to exceed a 20 percent registered apprenticeship goal.

As Congress has passed this bill annually for nearly 60 consecutive years, AGC is taking seriously any attempt to add policies that would be harmful to the construction industry.

For more information, contact Jordan Howard at jordan.howard@agc.org or (703) 837-5368.