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Last week, the Senate passed the negotiated budget agreement and adjourned for August recess. The budget deal, which authorizes spending for two years, was the product of a compromise between President Trump and Congressional Democrats. While Trump urged Republicans to support the budget, many conservatives opposed it. The deal extends beyond the 2020 election – reflecting a budget agreement and a suspension of the debt ceiling – removing the possibility of default as well as the need for fresh budget negotiations during a contentious election season. In addition to passing a budget, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee passed a first draft of a surface transportation bill, reauthorizing the FAST Act for five years and the Senate confirmed an additional 13 Trump-appointed judges to the federal bench. The EPW bill will provide a base for reauthorization negotiations, and – if properly funded – reflect a 27% increase in federal outlays over the next five years, 90% of which will flow to state Departments of Transportation for surface infrastructure projects. There is still no clarity how the bill will be funded, with a gas tax increase continuing to seem unlikely. With the 13 judges confirmed by the Senate last week, the total number of Trump-appointed judges confirmed by the Senate since January 2017 is 144, marking a long-lasting impact on the federal judiciary. The most notable of Trump-appointed judges were Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, who are both serving as associate justices of the United States Supreme Court. For more information, contact Andrew Tyrrell at atyrrell@nrmca.org. 
Government Affairs
One of the industry’s structural advantages is that it has a presence in every state and every Congressional District in the U.S. This provides NRMCA with the ability to leverage the employee base, economic activity, community relations and political relationships of NRMCA members to gain an audience and present the industry’s priorities to targeted Members of Congress.We need your help in two ways: 1. Please ensure that NRMCA has a complete and accurate listing of your facilities. When we go to contact Members of Congress, we look in our database to see who has facilities in or near their districts. If we do not have a current list of your facilities, we will be less effective in leveraging the industry’s presence to advocate for industry priorities. 2. NRMCA Government Affairs is building a database of NRMCA member companies and executives with relationships with Members of Congress. It’s a small world and many NRMCA members have connections with Members of Congress. If you go to church, hunt, roomed in college, play golf or otherwise know a Member of Congress, please let us know. This information will be kept confidential and used for Government Affairs advocacy purposes. Please help NRMCA maximize its efforts by keeping us updated on your facilities lists and any relationships you have with Members of Congress.Thank you for your commitment to the industry. For more information, contact Andrew Tyrrell at atyrrell@nrmca.org.
SEO
Federal Transportation Officials Propose to Exclude "Not Preventable" Accidents from Safety Profiles
This week, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published a proposal to make permanent a pilot program started in 2017 to examine the feasibility of excluding certain types of crashes from driver and carrier safety profiles. A long-time complaint of industry, prior to 2017, was crashes being counted toward determining how safe a driver and/or carrier was, even if the crash was not preventable. This proposal looks to continue the current work in the same format, but potentially expand the number and types of crashes the program would consider from eight to 15. The data recovered from the program could also be used to better determine crash preventability and “highway safety risks.” NRMCA will submit comments in support of the program’s permanence. Comments on the proposal are due October 4. Click here for more information or to review the proposal. For more information, contact Kevin Walgenbach at kwalgenbach@nrmca.org. This year’s NRMCA National Truck Mixer Driver Championship will take place on Saturday, October 5, during NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center, Kissimmee, FL. The registration form for drivers looking to participate in NRMCA’s National Mixer Driver Championship 2019 is still open. Don’t miss out, please submit your driver’s registration form and payment for entering into the championship. Click here to access the registration information and form please. For more information, contact Gary Mullings or Jessica Walgenbach. NRMCA’s National Mixer Driver Championship is a highlight of the year and it’s still not too late for your company to be part of it. Held in conjunction with ConcreteWorks, which begins October 3, the championship and conference represents one of the industry's best opportunities for ready mixed concrete producers to interact with companies that provide goods and services to the concrete industry. Sponsorships are limited and with only few more weeks to go NRMCA Associate members are rapidly taking advantage of the remaining NMDC sponsorship opportunities. Hurry and secure your sponsorship before they sell out! Click here to access the remaining list of sponsorship opportunities. For more information, contact Jacques Jenkins at jjenkins@nrmca.org or at 240-485-1165. 
Business Advancement
Take advantage of NRMCA’s once-a-year discount to those who register for the Certified Concrete Sales Professional (CCSP) series-of-four workshops. Additionally, the class fee is reduced to companies who send three or more people to one sales class. Finally, NRMCA moved all four classes to Dallas, a central U.S. location. Each class will be held at the same hotel, just three miles from Love Field and 20 minutes from Dallas/Ft Worth International Airport. Rev up your sales staff for 2020! Each class stands alone so it does NOT have to be taken consecutively or collectively. The schedule is as follows: • Module 1: Concrete 101 - October 22-25 Click here to register for the 4-class discount. For more information about each class, click on the titles above or contact NRMCA's Jessica Walgenbach at jwalgenbach@nrmca.org or 240-485-1152. 2020 January 14 – 16, Des Moines, IA January 21 – 24, Florence, KY January 28 – 30, Orlando, FL January 28 – 30, Dallas February 25 – 28, Miami March 7 – 9, Las Vegas March 10 – 14, Las Vegas March 17 – 19, Dallas September 27 – 29, Aurora, CO Engineering
NRMCA in conjunction with the with the Arkansas Ready Mixed Concrete Association is presenting the one-day course, Improving Concrete Quality, intended for concrete producers, ingredient material suppliers, engineers, testing labs and contractors, on November 20 in Little Rock, AR. Improved concrete quality can benefit all stakeholders in a concrete construction project. This course will address the following topics:
Course instructors are Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D., FACI, Beton Consulting Engineers LLC, and Karthik Obla, Ph.D., P.E. at NRMCA. Producers will learn readily implementable steps to manage variability and attain a more consistent product; ingredient suppliers will learn how material variation affects concrete variation; engineers will learn the opportunity for improving quality through specifications and testing lab professionals will learn to measure and improve testing quality. Upon successful completion of the course, attendees will earn 8 professional development hours, a certificate of completion and credits toward NRMCA’s STEPS program. Click here for more information, registration options and staff contact. The American Concrete Institute (ACI) has released a new edition of its ACI 318-19 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete. It is now available in print and digital formats with full-color illustrations to improve clarity, ACI 318-19 includes major technical changes in higher reinforcing steel yield strengths; the addition of shotcrete and deep foundation provisions; seismic requirements for deep foundations and other applications; vertical seismic motions; nonlinear analysis for seismic design; modification to development length equations; and updated shear design provisions and equations. A variety of other industry needs are now addressed in ACI 318-19, including updates to provisions on post-tensioning, precast concrete, concrete durability, lightweight concrete, and more. 
Calendar
*Please note that e-mail and direct links to each event listed below can be accessed from NRMCA's Web site. October 3 – 7, Kissimmee, FL October 22 – 24, Irving, TX October 22 – 25, Dallas November 11 – 15, Baltimore November 19 – 21, Orlando, FL November 20, Little Rock, AR December 10 – 13, Orlando, FL December 17 – 19, Dallas |
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