During its third annual Build Your Future Scholarship program, NCCER awarded scholarships of $2,000 each to 10 students who are pursuing craft professional education in the construction industry. NCCER and ABC’s Trimmer Construction Education Fund partner annually to present the scholarships to the top students attending an NCCER-accredited program or a state or federally-approved apprenticeship program in a merit shop training facility. 

Recently, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs announced three new directives, and the DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service opened the filing season for the VETS-4212 report. 

In February 2017, President Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review the 2015 final Clean Water Rule: Definition of "Waters of the United States," also known as the WOTUS final rule, and accordingly revise or rescind it through public comment.

On Sept. 4, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued a notice to announce that the minimum wage for federal contractors will increase to $10.60 from the current $10.35 per hour beginning Jan. 1, 2019. 

National nonresidential construction spending declined 0.3 percent in July, according to an ABC analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Total nonresidential spending stood at $748.8 billion on a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate in July, an increase of 5.3 percent from the same time last year. Private nonresidential spending fell 1 percent in July, while public nonresidential spending expanded 0.7 percent.

On Aug. 24, the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published an announcement of public hearings on the joint proposal “Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks” in the Federal Register. The SAFE Vehicles proposed rule would amend certain existing Corporate Average Fuel Economy and tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions standards for passenger cars and light trucks and establish new standards for model years 2021 through 2026.

On Aug. 28, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced that it will hold several listening sessions to hear public feedback on white-collar exemption regulations, often referred to as the overtime rule. Issued under the Fair Labor Standards Act, these regulations implement exemptions from overtime pay requirements for executive, administrative, professional and certain other employees. The DOL’s WHD will hold five listening sessions that are free and open to the public; however, participants must register to attend the sessions. 

A study released by the University of Kentucky Center for Business and Economic Research concluded that West Virginia’s prevailing wage mandate, repealed by the state legislature in 2016, inflated the cost of public school construction. By comparing projects bid from 2013 to 2018 and using data provided by the West Virginia School Building Authority, the authors determined that the cost of projects bid without a prevailing wage requirement were 7.3 percent lower than those bid with government-mandated wages.

For the second time this year, estimated July construction unemployment rates fell in every state and nationally on a year-over-year basis, according to an analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released by ABC. The July 2018 not seasonally adjusted national construction unemployment rate fell 1.5 percent to 3.4 percent from July 2017. At the same time, the construction industry employed 303,000 more workers nationally compared to July 2017, according to BLS statistics.

On Aug. 21, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s power plants, the Affordable Clean Energy proposed rule. It would roll back President Obama’s 2015 regulation, known as the Clean Power Plan, which would have imposed strict regulations on coal-fired power plants and was widely opposed by the construction industry. The CPP was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court and has never been in effect.