A federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, has permanently rolled back updated wage regulations in the 1931 Davis Bacon Act. The regulations, which were added in 2023 during the Biden administration, aimed to expand ‘prevailing wage’ protections in contracts involving federal money.
Background of the Case
The Associated General Contractors of America, J. Lee Milligan, Incorporated of Amarillo, and the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce sued the administration to stop the update. Attorney Fernando Bustos argued that ‘Presidents cannot just amend acts of Congress at will. That’s what President Biden tried to do here … He was trying to make the laws himself like a king. And that’s unconstitutional every day of the week.’
Chris Chambers, co-founder of Lubbock’s Chambers Engineering and chair of the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce, stated that the impact of the regulations would have eliminated a huge number of companies’ ability to compete on federal and state contracts. Chambers testified in a deposition for the case, explaining that the regulations would have driven up costs for city, county, and school projects if they took federal grant money.
Impact of the Ruling
The ruling affects an estimated $217 billion in federal and federally assisted construction spending per year, according to the Federal Register. The Davis Bacon Act requires workers to receive prevailing local wages determined by the Department of Labor on federal contracts. The Federal Register also noted that the wage law impacts an estimated 1.2 million construction workers yearly.
Bustos explained that the Biden administration’s proposed regulations went beyond the actual law. For example, the regulations would have made factory workers in a factory 500 miles away from the work site subject to the prevailing wage rules of Davis-Bacon. Bustos also used the example of a trucking company in Lubbock hired to deliver materials to a job site in Chicago, stating that under President Biden’s attempt, the truck driver from Lubbock would be subject to the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage, and the owner of the trucking company in Lubbock would be forced to pay Chicago wage rates to his truck drivers.
Chambers noted that those wage rates being set as a national minimum in any location would create problems in competitive markets, especially in competitive markets like the one in Texas. The Lubbock Chamber of Commerce represents 1,500 businesses, and Chambers stated that the regulations would have created problems for many of those businesses.
Original reporting: Lubbock Lights — read the source article.
