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ISFAC Holds August Meeting
The Illinois State Freight Advisory Council (ISFAC) recently met in Springfield. ISFAC held discussions and received presentations on the following subjects.
- Truck parking
- Waterway maintenance from the US Army Corps of Engineers
- Updates from the Illinois International Port District
- Aviation, freight planning, and marine updates
View the presentation material here.
Bills of Interest
HB 4131, EV Charging was filed by Representative Harper. This bill creates the Electrical Vehicle Infrastructure Act. Provides that a unit of local government shall not restrict which types of electric vehicles may access an electric vehicle charging station approved for passenger vehicles that both is publicly accessible and the construction of which was funded, at least in part, by the State or through moneys collected from ratepayers. Requires the Illinois Commerce Commission, in consultation with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, to assess whether charging station infrastructure is disproportionately deployed by population density, geographical area, or population income level. Provides that the Commission shall facilitate the development of technologies that promote grid integration, explore policies that support the development of technologies, and adopt a tariff specific to heavy-duty electric vehicle fleets or electric trucks and buses.
Rulemaking
There was no rulemaking of note for this Council in the September 8th edition of the Illinois Register.
Recently released in the Federal Register, the US Department of Labor (DOL) published a final rule updating regulations issued under the Davis-Bacon and Related Acts. This is the first comprehensive review of these regulations in almost 40 years and the Department says the revisions will "promote compliance, provide appropriate and updated guidance, and enhance their usefulness in the modern economy."
From the Federal Register:
The Davis-Bacon Act, enacted in 1931, requires the payment of locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits on Federal contracts for construction. See40 U.S.C. 3142. The DBA applies to workers on contracts entered into by Federal agencies and the District of Columbia that are in excess of $2,000 and for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works. Congress subsequently incorporated DBA prevailing wage requirements into numerous statutesunder which Federal agencies assist construction projects through grants, loans, loan guarantees, insurance, and other methods...
Through this rulemaking, the Department seeks to address a number of these outstanding challenges in the program while also providing greater clarity in the DBRA regulations and enhancing their usefulness in the modern economy. In the NPRM, the Department proposed to update and modernize the regulations implementing the DBRA at 29 CFR parts 1, 3, and 5. In some of these proposed revisions, the Department had determined that changes it made in the 1981–1982 rulemaking were mistaken or ultimately resulted in outcomes that are increasingly in tension with the DBA statute itself. In others, the Department sought to expand further on procedures that were introduced in that last major revision, or to propose new procedures that will increase efficiency of administration of the DBRA and enhance protections for covered construction workers. The Department invited comments on these proposed updates and received 40,938 timely comments after a 60-day comment period...
This final rule includes several elements:
- the final rule amends § 1.3 of the regulations by outlining a new methodology to expressly give the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) Administrator authority and discretion to adopt State or local wage determinations as the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage where certain specified criteria are satisfied.
- Amends the definition of “prevailing wage” in § 1.2, and in § 1.7, the scope of data considered to identify the prevailing wage in a given area. To address the overuse of weighted average rates, the Department returns to the definition of “prevailing wage” in § 1.2 that it used from 1935 to 1983.
- Revisions to §§ 1.3 and 5.5 are aimed at reducing the need for the use of “conformances” where the Department has received insufficient data to publish a prevailing wage for a classification of worker—a process that currently is burdensome on contracting agencies, contractors, and the Department. This final rule codifies a new procedure through which the Department may identify (and list on the wage determination) wage and fringe benefit rates for certain classifications for which WHD received insufficient data through its wage survey program.
- The Department also revises § 1.6(c)(1) to provide a mechanism to regularly update certain non-collectively bargained prevailing wage rates based on the Employment Cost Index (ECI) published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
- The Department also strengthens enforcement in several critical ways.
- the Department finalizes new anti-retaliation provisions in the Davis-Bacon contract clauses in new paragraphs at § 5.5(a)(11) (DBRA) and (b)(5) (Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act (CWHSSA)), and in a new section of part 5 at § 5.18.
- he Department clarifies and strengthens the cross-withholding procedure for recovering back wages by including new language in the withholding contract clauses at § 5.5(a)(2) (DBRA) and (b)(3) (CWHSSA) to clarify that cross-withholding may be accomplished on contracts held by agencies other than the agency that awarded the contract.
View the final rule here which is effective on October 23.
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