Every year, NUCA members from around the country travel to Washington, D.C., to make the industry’s voice heard on a number of priority issues on NUCA’s legislative agenda. For NUCA’s Government Relations Department, this is the busiest but most valuable time of the year. This year is especially important because the vast majority of our legislative efforts are aimed at putting the underground utility construction industry back to work.

Yes, there are a few other issues we’ll be talking about, but expanding our markets is far and away the No. 1 issue this year. We recognize the difficulty of traveling during these tough times, but showing up in force in your nation’s Capitol for this year’s NUCA Washington Summit (May 17-19) has never been more important. The following is a brief description of what’s on tap this year.

First Things First

Construction has been, by far, the hardest hit industry sector since the beginning of the economic downturn. In fact, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report shows that the construction industry shed another 64,000 jobs in February, about in line with the average monthly job loss over the prior six months. The number of employed construction workers is now at a 14-year low while the unemployment rate for the construction industry stands at 27.1 percent, the highest on record since 1976. There are approximately 2.4 million construction workers currently out of work.

So what are we doing about it? NUCA and the Clean Water Council (CWC), an alliance of 35 national construction organizations that work on a range of legislative initiatives to increase national investment in America’s underground infrastructure, continue to lead the way on Capitol Hill on many legislative initiatives intended to provide funding for water and wastewater infrastructure projects. Your participation in this year’s Summit will be instrumental.

FY 2011 Appropriations: The first order of business will be to ensure adequate annual funding for existing federal infrastructure financing programs. This year, annual appropriations for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs received the highest investment levels ($3.5 billion) in well over 10 years. Although slightly lower than FY 2010, the president’s FY 2011 budget proposes $3.3 billion, with $2 billion going to the Clean Water SRF and $1.3 billion to the Drinking Water SRF. At the Summit, we will fight to ensure that those levels are not cut during this year’s appropriations process.

SRF Reauthorization: Any NUCA veteran knows that reauthorizing the SRF programs at significantly higher funding levels has been a priority for the association for years. Through a combination of industry solidarity, hard work and a tenacious grassroots membership, SRF reauthorization legislation is closer to the goal line than ever before. Passage of Senate SRF reauthorization legislation (S 1005) will be in the briefing books at this year’s Summit, and our request to lawmakers will include asking for an expedited conference of S 1005 and companion House legislation (HR 1262). A speedy conference is needed to make SRF reauthorization a reality in the 111th Congress.

Private Activity Bond Legislation: During debate over various jobs bills for the past several months, direct investment in existing federal underground infrastructure financing programs (i.e. SRF) has, for the most part, been neglected. While we continue to advocate for public investment, it is clear that public-private partnerships will play a key role in the financing of environmental infrastructure projects in the future. In what has become the dark horse in water infrastructure legislation this year, NUCA has spent countless hours pushing the Sustainable Water Infrastructure Investment Act (HR 537), which would eliminate the state volume cap subject to private activity bonds (PABs) for water and wastewater infrastructure. Eliminating the cap would allow for much more private investment in these projects, thus creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for our industry, boosting local economies and enhancing public health and environmental protection all at the same time.

Working with a broad coalition of water associations and several large corporations, NUCA won CWC support of the legislation, which brought the full weight of the construction industry to the effort. At press time, HR 537 was included in a draft “small business jobs bill” about to be introduced by the House Ways and Means Committee. If this bill is not passed before the Washington Summit, it will be the priority issue on the agenda.

Take on the Tax Man

Next year will subject disastrous tax provisions on American businesses unless Congress corrects them. The first regards permanent reform of the federal estate tax (death tax). Although the death tax is fully repealed this year, it will come back in full force next year, meaning a 55 percent top estate tax rate and a futile $1 million exemption unless Congress does something about it. Congressional Democrats are under the gun to broker an agreement before being blamed for imposing a huge tax increase on America’s family businesses in 2011. NUCA will encourage Congress to provide permanent and fair death tax relief before the end of the year, meaning a much lower top rate and a considerably higher family business exemption.

Although the implementation date for the dreaded “contractor withholding” provision was pushed to 2012, this harmful language must be removed from the tax code, and the sooner the better. As a reminder, the provision would require virtually all federal, state and local government entities to withhold three percent of all payments to organizations providing goods and services to them until all tax compliance is confirmed. This withholding is nothing more than government at its worst.

Preserve Democracy at the Workplace

NUCA has strongly opposed the Employee Free Choice Act since it was introduced last year. The legislation, commonly referred to as Card Check, would circumvent the democratic process for workplace organizing decisions by allowing a majority of check cards to force collective bargaining with a union in lieu of the traditional secret ballot process. Even worse, passage of Card Check legislation would impose binding government arbitration if a contract is not agreed to within 90 days.

Although the bill lost any momentum it previously enjoyed due to most attention diverted to the economy and the health care debate, it could gain steam and become a high-profile issue very quickly. At press time, the Capitol Hill media was reporting that organized labor is beginning to threaten vulnerable Democrats to start moving bills on labor’s agenda “or else” (meaning that union political dollars could begin to creep into Democratic primaries). This is equivalent of the “putting the fear of God” in some vulnerable Democrats. Therefore, we must continue our strong opposition to the bill.

Be There!

The Washington Summit provides NUCA members a chance to tell their lawmakers about the state of our industry, voice their opinions about important industry issues and engage in the political process. For NUCA, nothing makes a bigger difference than a small army of NUCA members storming Capitol Hill and telling NUCA’s story. For more information about how to register, visit the NUCA Web site at www.nuca.com. NUCA is only as strong as its active grassroots membership. We are counting on your help this May.

Eben Wyman is NUCA Vice President of Government Relations.