In response to public requests, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is extending the comment period on revising the recordkeeping and reporting requirements for work-related injuries and illnesses. Anyone interested in submitting comments has until Oct. 28, 2011, to do so.

Under the proposal rule revisions, employers would be required to report to OSHA any work-related fatalities and all in-patient hospitalizations within eight hours, and work-related amputations within 24 hours. OSHA’s current regulation requires employers to report to OSHA, within eight hours, all work-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees.

OSHA is also proposing to update Appendix A of the recordkeeping rule that lists industries partially exempt from the requirements to maintain work-related injury or illness logs. These industries received partial exemption because of their relatively low injury and illness rates.

See the Federal Register notice for details on how to submit comments. Technical questions should be directed to David Schmidt, OSHA Office of Statistical Analysis, at 202-693-2400.

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) 2011 National Chairman Michael J. Uremovich, president of Great Lakes Energy Consultants, LLC, Manhattan, Ill., says President Obama’s jobs plan “won’t pass inspection” with the construction industry when it comes to creating jobs and getting Americans back to work.

“We are disappointed that the president did not come up with any new, innovative ideas to address the nation’s serious economic problems, especially the critical issues facing the construction industry,” says Uremovich.

“Job growth will not begin until we first rollback the costly, burdensome and job-killing regulations that have buried business owners in government red tape and created a climate of uncertainty among construction contractors,” he adds.

“Missing from the president’s plan was an initiative on public-private partnerships as an opportunity to responsibly invest in improving our nation’s infrastructure, including energy facilities, schools and military installations without adding to our deficit,” Uremovich says. “The Military Housing Privatization Initiative is one example of a public-private partnership where both the private sector and the federal government profited, jobs were created and federal infrastructure was improved, enhanced and expanded at no cost to the taxpayer, the federal government or the deficit.”

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) is a national association with 75 chapters representing more than 23,000 merit shop construction and construction-related firms with nearly two million employees.

THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT

1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

• Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
• A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages: The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50 million in payroll increases).
• Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment.
• Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.

2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America

• A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
• Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs,while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
• Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country,supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
• Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
• A New “Project Rebuild”, which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other public-private collaborations.
• Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.

3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs.

• The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years: As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers, including:
  • Work-Sharing: UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
  • A new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves innovative state programs where those displacedtake temporary, voluntary work or pursue on-the-job training.
  • Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own businesses.
• A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
• Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
• Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment, innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.

4. Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family

• Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.
• Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.

5. Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan.To ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing our debt as a share of the economy.

Also pending is action by Congress by Sept. 30 to reauthorize or extend the provision allowing the federal government to collect fuel taxes. The 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax funds the surface transportation program.

Investment in infrastructure — including $50 billion for roads, rails and airports — was a major component of the jobs proposal Obama outlined last week, but he did not mention no mention the surface transportation bills. If there is no extension of the $51.5 billion in funding, work on more than 134,000 road and bridge projects and about 5,000 transit projects will be suspended, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. About 4,000 federal workers would face immediate furloughs.

Reauthorization or an extension of transportation funding has drawn bipartisan support from local and state leaders across the country, as well as business and labor groups. Representatives from the AFL-CIO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, two groups that differ a lot more than they agree, joined Obama at an Aug. 30 White House event to call attention to the surface transportation issue.

House Republicans and Senate Democrats have competing proposals. The House measure would require nearly a 30 percent reduction in highway and transit programs, as funding would be limited to anticipated fuel-tax revenues over a six-year period. A Senate bill would maintain the current level of funding over two years.

With little time left before the Sept. 30 deadline — both the House and Senate will be in session at the same time for just seven days during the month — it’s doubtful agreement can be reached on any long-term reauthorization measure. So talk has centered on a short-term extension that would be the eighth since the last reauthorization bill expired in October 2009.

Two segments of construction inputs were associated with particularly large changes in prices for the month. Asphalt, tar roofing and siding prices rose 2.4 percent in July and were up 4.8 percent year over year. Nonferrous wire and cable prices increased 2.3 percent for the month and are 16.6 percent higher than the same time last year.

Many inputs experienced much smaller monthly price increases, such as iron and steel, which saw increases of 0.5 percent for the month and 14.3 percent over the last 12 months. Similarly, steel mill product prices were 0.5 percent higher for the month and 11.8 percent higher year over year; fabricated structural metal products prices grew 0.4 percent in July and are 5.5 percent higher than the same time last year; and plumbing fixtures and fittings prices increased 0.4 percent in July and are 3.2 percent higher than July 2010.

Inputs whose prices remained relatively flat included concrete products, up 0.1 percent for the month but down 0.1 percent from the same time last year, and softwood lumber, down 0.1 percent for the month and up 0.1 percent compared to one year ago.

Total crude energy prices fell 2.6 percent in July as crude petroleum prices dropped 5.2 percent. However, crude energy prices are still 14.1 percent higher than one year ago. Wholesale goods prices increased 0.2 percent for the month and are up 7.2 percent year over year.

Analysis

“With the global economy slowing, industrial commodity prices are no longer rising so quickly and changes in materials prices over the next several months are likely to be modest in either direction,” said Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu.

He added, “Given the emergence of greater volatility in the markets and growing fear of another recession, the appetite for risk is on the wane, which is likely to translate into project delays and in turn will reduce the demand for construction materials. That should also help moderate materials price increases in the months ahead. Some of this is already apparent in the data, as materials price increases in recent months have been well below the increases registered in early 2011.

“However, that outlook would change if more unexpected bad news came from Europe, since that could trigger a shift in asset allocations from paper assets to harder assets such as commodities, driving up materials prices in the process,” Basu said. “The same could happen if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announces yet another round of quantitative easing in light of America’s recent economic slowing.”

The Web site reports that Boxer will support a “clean” extension — meaning there would be no changes to policies or funding levels. The extension would last through the end of January. SAFETEA-LU is set to expire at midnight Sept. 30; an extension is needed to keep most highway/transit programs operating and to continue the collection of federal transportation taxes.

The planned move by the EPW Committee raises questions about what House Transportation Committee Chairperson John Mica will do. After 20 “clean” extensions of the Federal Aviation bill, Mica successfully inserted policy changes over the objections of his Senate counterparts. It is possible to that he might try to insert policy changes in a SAFETEA-LU extension.

The bipartisan two-year highway/transit legislative proposal could go to the full Senate the following week.

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed a lawsuit against the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

Henry Gifford originally filed a class action lawsuit for $100 million dollars based on alleged false advertising by the USGBC. The lawsuit was later amended to cover only four plaintiffs, but the allegations remained the same: that -the USGBC was falsely claiming that LEED certified buildings were energy efficient.

A plaintiff filing a lawsuit must show standing to prove that the right person is bringing the suit. The defense questioned how Gifford would prove he was harmed by the alleged false advertising.Gifford had to satisfy two tests to show standing:

(1) The Strong Categorical Test

“The strong categorical test provides that ‘the plaintiff must be a competitor of the defendant and allege a competitive injury.’”  The court held that Gifford, a building energy efficiency consultant, and the USGBC, which certifies buildings, were not competitors because Gifford does not certify buidings.

(2) The Reasonable Commercial Interest Test

Under the reasonable commercial interest approach, a plaintiff must demonstrate “both likely injury and a causal nexus to the false advertising.”  The court held that Gifford failed this test, saying that owners could hire any consultant they wanted for a LEED building. Furthermore, the court posited that even if Gifford could show one owner that would only hire a LEED-accredited consultant, it could not be proven that the owner’s decision was based on the alleged false advertising.

Construction employment increased in 26 states between July 2010 and July 2011, as well as during the past month, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of state employment data released by the Labor Department.

The relatively even split between states adding and losing construction jobs was to be expected, given the fact that overall employment in construction was relatively stagnant in July, association officials noted.

“When it comes to construction employment, for every state adding jobs there is another one shedding just as many or more,” said Stephen E. Sandherr, the association’s chief executive officer. “The fact that this industry is breaking even when it comes to construction employment is little comfort for many unemployed construction workers.”

The largest percentage increase in construction employment during the past year took place in North Dakota (19.0 percent, 4,000 jobs). Other states experiencing large percentage increases included Illinois (8.2 percent, 15,400 jobs); Michigan (8.0 percent, 9,600 jobs) and Oklahoma (6.0 percent, 4,000 jobs). Texas added the most jobs during the past year (23,800 jobs, 4.2 percent); followed by Illinois; California (13,100 jobs, 2.4 percent) and Michigan.

Among the 23 states that lost construction jobs during the past 12 months, Georgia (-9.9 percent, -14,800 jobs) had the highest percentage decline. Other states with large percentage declines included New Mexico (-8.9 percent, -3,900 jobs); Colorado (-8.6 percent, -9,800 jobs) and Idaho (-7.9 percent, -2,400 jobs). Florida (-23,000 jobs, -6.5 percent) lost the most jobs followed by Georgia; Colorado and North Carolina (-6,300 jobs, -3.6 percent). Construction employment was unchanged for the year in Vermont.

Montana had the largest percentage increase (7.0 percent, 1,500 jobs) in construction jobs during the past month; followed by Utah (4.3 percent, 2,800 jobs); Arkansas (3.8 percent, 1,800 jobs) and Iowa (2.6 percent, 1,600 jobs). California (3,200 jobs, 0.6 percent) added the largest number of jobs; followed by Utah; Missouri (2,500 jobs, 2.4 percent) and Tennessee (2,400 jobs, 2.2 percent).

The largest percentage decline among the 24 states that lost construction jobs between June and July occurred in Alaska (-4.3 percent, -700 jobs); followed by Idaho (-3.8 percent, -1,100 jobs); Georgia (-2.8 percent, -3,900 jobs) and Minnesota (-2.3 percent, -2,000 jobs). The largest number of construction job losses over the month was in Texas (-6,000 jobs, -1.0 percent); followed by Florida (-5,800 jobs, -1.7 percent); Illinois (-4,300 jobs, -2.1 percent) and Georgia.

Association officials noted that contractors around the country were reporting that they have been forced to reduce staff because of cutbacks in many federally funded construction projects. They urged President Obama and Congress to focus on out-of-control entitlement spending instead of cutting construction and infrastructure spending. They also noted that unless Washington officials are willing to allow broken bridges and other neglected public structures to remain out of service, taxpayers would end up paying more to fix infrastructure than they would to maintain it now.

“What’s going on in Washington is killing us,” Andrew Koebel, senior vice president of San Antonio, Texas-based Kunz Construction told the San Antonio Business Journal.

View the state employment data by rank and by state.

Norquist said that an extension with no changes wouldn’t violate a pledge signed by many Congressional lawmakers to not raise taxes.

The lack of opposition from Norquist’s group might enable Republicans to agree to extend surface transportation funding and authority to collect the gasoline tax. The Federal Aviation Administration last month temporarily lost its authority to collect airline ticket taxes when Congress couldn’t agree on an extension bill for that agency, and about 4,000 FAA workers were furloughed for two weeks.

“Summer heat presents a serious issue that affects some of the most vulnerable workers in our country, and education is crucial to keeping them safe,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “Heat-related illnesses are preventable. This new app is just one way the Labor Department is getting that message out.”

The app, available in English and Spanish, combines heat index data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with the user’s location to determine necessary protective measures. Based on the risk level of the heat index, the app provides users with information about precautions they may take, such as drinking fluids, taking rest breaks and adjusting work operations. Users also can review the signs and symptoms of heat stroke, heat exhaustion and other heat-related illnesses, and learn about first aid steps to take in an emergency. Information for supervisors is also available through the app on how to gradually build up the workload for new workers as well as how to train employees on heat illness signs and symptoms. Additionally, users can contact OSHA directly through the app.

The app is designed for devices using an Android platform, and versions for BlackBerry and iPhone users will be released shortly. To download it, visit here.

More than 30 workers died from heat stroke in 2010. Thousands become ill from heat exhaustion and other heat illnesses every year. Some of the highest illness rates occur among construction workers, farmworkers, roofers, landscapers, baggage handlers and other air transportation workers.

Effective heat illness prevention requires simple planning. Employers are responsible for protecting workers by providing plenty of water, scheduling rest breaks in the shade or air-conditioned spaces, planning heavy work early in the day, preparing for medical emergencies, training workers about heat and other job hazards, taking steps to help workers – especially those who are new to working outdoors or who have been away from work for a period of time – acclimatize to the heat, and gradually increasing workloads or allowing more frequent breaks during the first week of an outdoor project.

Information for employers about using the heat index to calculate and address risks posed to workers also is available through OSHA’s new Web-based tool “Using the Heat Index: Employer Guidance,” which is accessible at http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/heatillness/heat_index/index.html. OSHA’s other educational and training tools about heat illnesses prevention, available in English and Spanish, can be found athttp://www.osha.gov/SLTC/heatillness/index.html.

“OSHA’s prevention message is clear: Water. Rest. Shade. These are three little words that make a big difference for outdoor workers during the hot summer months,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Dr. David Michaels.