Source: United States Senator for South Dakota John Thune
U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) joined his colleagues in urging the U.S. Department of Labor to oppose the Biden administration’s proposal to make substantial, misguided, and burdensome changes to the wage regulations issued under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts (DBRA), a federal labor law that is already overly complicated and costly for the construction industry to comply with. The senators underscored the consequences of these proposed changes, which would unfairly benefit unions and further inflate wages and regulatory burdens at the cost of taxpayers, leading to higher construction costs and higher housing prices.
“The current proposal, by reverting to regulations and policies last employed in the Carter Administration, represents a massive step backward,” the senators wrote. “Further, it fails to adopt necessary reforms recommended by government watchdogs, only exacerbating deficiencies in wage survey and data collection, further inflating construction costs at great detriment to the taxpayer.”
“By repealing the Reagan-era reforms and ignoring the urgent recommendations of government watchdogs to truly modernize the DBRA, the Administration is willfully promulgating fundamentally misguided policy that for decades has resulted in grossly inflated wages, contravening the original intent of Davis-Bacon,” continued the senators.
“With inflation already reducing the worth of the bill, the proposal contained within this NPRM will only further limit the number of infrastructure projects the federal government can pursue, greatly inflate the cost to the taxpayer of necessary infrastructure projects at rates far above market value, all while imposing boundless administrative and paperwork burdens on small to mid-size contractors. We therefore urge the Administration to refrain from pursuing this misguided proposal,” the senators concluded.
The letter was led by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and was also signed by U.S. Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
In March, Thune introduced the Housing Supply Expansion Act, legislation that would address the shortage of affordable housing options across the nation by making targeted reforms to requirements under the DBRA. These reforms would reduce labor costs and administrative burdens on construction contractors, which would free up capital that could be redirected toward building additional affordable housing. The DBRA – as it stands – can disincentivize the creation of new affordable housing due to the high costs it places on construction contractors.
Read the full letter here.