Washington Report: Passing the Baton

by Patty Power, ACPA Washington Advocate

As this decade ends, ACPA’s Washington representation has changed. ACPA’s long-time lead advocate, Craig Piercy, has left Bose Public Affairs Group to lead the American Nuclear Society. Patty Power, who started working on ACPA issues nearly four years ago, has taken the mantle from Craig. She started her career in Washington immediately after graduating law school over 35 years ago, and worked on Capitol Hill and in the Administration before launching her career as an advocate. While working closely with Craig over the past few years, Patty has led on ACPA’s interface with North American Concrete Alliance (NACA), dealing with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) on hours of service issues, the Concrete Pump Tax Fairness Act, and lobbying Congress on infrastructure-related issues. The transition will be seamless, even though we will miss Craig!

What’s New

Hours of service. ACPA now has two exemptions from the FMCSA hours of service (HOS) requirements. Until March 17, 2024, concrete pump operators are exempt from the requirement to use off-duty time to take a 30-minute break. Pumpers can use on-duty time. Until November 1, 2023, concrete pump operators have a two-hour extension to the short-haul exemption. The short-haul exemption applies to commercial drivers who drive within a 100-air-mile radius and return to their normal reporting location at the end of a 12-hour day. The ACPA two-hour extension allows concrete pumps to operate for 14 hours. The 30-minute break requirement does not apply if you operate under the short-haul exemption.

Sales tax issues in Washington State. Through our members working in Washington State, we learned in October that the Department of Revenue (DOR) published Interim Guidance that changed how sales tax would be applied to concrete pumping services. While ACPA does not engage on state-specific issues typically, we saw this action potentially as a fundamental change that could harm the whole industry. DOR’s approach looked at the type of company that provided the pumping service to determine how the service should be taxed. ACPA argued that all concrete pumping service should be taxed the same. Current status is that the DOR postponed implementation of the new guidance until April 2020, and the state legislature may get involved to support the pumpers’ position that concrete pumping services are a construction service and not a retail rental subject to retail sales tax.

What’s Coming

2020 will be a very interesting political year with a historic start. The Senate has blocked its January calendar for the expected impeachment trial of President Trump. To date, political positions on the President’s interactions with the President of Ukraine divide on party lines. The House of Representatives is expected to impeach (think “indict”) President Trump before the end of this year. The Senate will hold a trial presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts. Impeachment trials are very rare and there are not many set rules and procedures, so expect lots of debate on the process. But at the end of the day, the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to convict at an impeachment trial. While some believe that some Republicans could join Democrats to vote to convict, no one believes that 20 Republican Senators will join with their Democratic colleagues to convict President Trump, based on the evidence now presented. The most important thing to keep in mind is that impeachment is a political process.

While the impeachment process continues to take up a lot of the oxygen needed to fuel other work, there are still a lot of things going on. Most importantly for concrete pumpers, both the House and the Senate infrastructure project committees continue to refine their approach to both a surface transportation reauthorization bill and a water resources reauthorization bill. Both will authorize significant amounts of federal funding for roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, dams, levees, and many related projects around the country. One of the issues common to both pieces of legislation that ACPA works closely with NACA on is promoting the use of resilient building materials. Concrete fits the bill! We have gotten a lot of traction when the conversation focuses on disaster recovery, and will continue to promote the use of concrete. Both the House and Senate are expected to move both highway and water bills in the first half of next year. Additional good news is that the surface transportation reauthorization bill provides a viable legislative vehicle for the Concrete Pump Tax Fairness Act.

Happy 2020 from Washington!

As this decade ends, ACPA’s Washington representation has changed. ACPA’s long-time lead advocate, Craig Piercy, has left Bose Public Affairs Group to lead the American Nuclear Society. Patty Power, who started working on ACPA issues nearly four years ago, has taken the mantle from Craig. She started her career in Washington immediately after graduating law school over 35 years ago, and worked on Capitol Hill and in the Administration before launching her career as an advocate. While working closely with Craig over the past few years, Patty has led on ACPA’s interface with North American Concrete Alliance (NACA), dealing with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) on hours of service issues, the Concrete Pump Tax Fairness Act, and lobbying Congress on infrastructure-related issues. The transition will be seamless, even though we will miss Craig!