Washington Report: Washington’s Actions to Affect the Concrete Industry

by Patty Power, ACPA Washington Advocate

Activity in Washington continues at an unprecedented pace across all three branches of the federal government. The White House continues to drive its aggressive agenda, testing the law and established norms in many sectors. The courts have both slowed and cleared the administration’s actions, in some cases temporarily on procedural grounds; in other cases, on substantive grounds. 

Congress has been focused on the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” a huge reconciliation package that includes tax and spending provisions. The bulk of the tax provisions will renew, and possibly make permanent, the 2017 Trump tax package. The spending provisions shift the focus on federal spending to defense and border security from safety net programs. As this issue goes to print, this package is being considered by the Senate. The recently released Senate version differs greatly from the version the House passed last month. There are many politically sensitive issues that will need to be resolved before the One Big, Beautiful Bill can be sent to President Trump to be signed and enacted.

This column will focus on recent actions in Washington that directly impact the concrete pumping industry. First, the president signed three congressionally passed resolutions that effectively stop the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) greenhouse gas rules requiring electric vehicle adoption in the near future. 

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) allows Congress to review regulations promulgated near the end of a prior administration. Politically, CRA resolutions will only progress through the legislative process when the White House, Senate, and House are all controlled by the same party. Near the end of last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted CARB a waiver of the federal Clean Air Act emission standards to allow CARB to set standards and programs stricter than those called for by the federal law. CARB set zero-emission greenhouse gas emission standards and rules to implement the standard, both much stricter than the recently issued federal rules. The CARB standards and rules required the purchase of electric vehicles, the only way to meet zero greenhouse gas emissions. Essentially, CARB called for the phase out of fossil-fueled internal combustion engines starting in 2027. 

The CARB greenhouse gas rules have been adopted by 18 states, making the impact much greater than just in California. Greenhouse gas zero-emission requirements are especially troublesome for heavy-duty trucks. While we recently learned that a battery-powered concrete pump has been produced in Germany, most concrete pumps that require more power than electric batteries can provide. For now, we have a reprieve. However, the CRA process used to enact the resolutions has been challenged in court. 

The second issue of direct interest to our ACPA membership is the Concrete Pump Tax Fairness Act — not a new topic in this column! Last Congress, Representative Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced H.R. 9095. This bill reflects the bipartisan compromise the ACPA worked out with Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate and supported by the Joint Tax Committee in 2020. H.R. 9095 reduces the current federal fuel tax to be paid by concrete pumps from 100 percent of fuel purchased to 55 percent, which reflects the average amount of fuel used on the road. The COVID-19 pandemic sidelined this effort. Then our two Republican congressional champions became the tax-writing Committee Chairs in the House, and then in the Senate, while our Democratic champions left office last year. ACPA is working to identify new champions in Congress who will lead the effort to enact this bill. 

We will be reaching out to our members located in critical congressional districts and states to request your support in engaging your representatives in Washington. Constituent relationships, as well as a member of Con-gress’ committee assignments, are critical in building the team needed to get this legislation enacted. We need your support to get this work done. And we look forward to working with you to get this bill over the line and enacted.

Finally, we want to remind you of ACPA's efforts in Washington to engage with the concrete and other construction industries to advance shared priorities. ACPA continues to be an active member of the North Atlantic Concrete Alliance (NACA), where we collectively seek opportunities to promote and protect the concrete indus-try. With NACA, we will focus on concrete industry issues in surface transportation reauthorization. In fact, NACA may plan a fly-in to support the reauthorization next year. 

ACPA has supported the No PLA Coalition, led by the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC), to fight the project labor agreement requirements on federal construction contracts over a $35 million threshold. The Non PLA Coalition successfully built congressional support and Trump reversed the Biden requirements.
Please look for our outreach on the tax bill. We will have updates in the next issue.