Navigating Change: AGC's Role in Construction Policy Under the Trump Administration

In this episode of Constructing Connections, Rich Barcaskey interviews Alex Etchen, Vice President of Government Relations for the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) to discuss the impact of recent executive orders and legislation on the construction industry.  

Key topics include: 

• Challenges of navigating executive orders 
• Significance of the "One Big, Beautiful Bill"  
• Critical needs for the upcoming federal highway reauthorization 

The conversation emphasizes the importance of advocacy and communication between contractors and their congressional representatives. 

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Transcript

Rich Barcaskey: [00:12 – 00:53] Hello everyone and welcome to CAWP's Constructing Connections. My name is Rich Barcaskey and with me today is Alex Etchen, Vice President of Government Relations for Associated General Contractors of America. CAWP is a proud chapter of the AGC. Alex and his team are responsible for advocating on behalf of CAWP and its other 86 construction chapters throughout the U.S. From Capitol Hill to federal agencies in the White House, AGC works directly with elected officials, staff, and regulators to shape policies that support a strong, more predictable, and a pro-growth climate for construction. Welcome Alex. 

Alex Etchen: [00:54 – 00:55] Thanks Rich and glad to be here. 

Rich Barcaskey: [00:56 – 01:06] So before we get started, I do know that right now you're living in the DC area, but you grew up, rumor has it, and you're a Western Pennsylvania guy. So tell us about that. 

Alex Etchen: [01:06 – 01:22] That's right. I grew up in Ligonier, Pennsylvania and went to school in Greensburg and then went to Penn State. So, still make it back that way a lot. My immediate family still lives there and aunts and uncles. So, enjoy getting back to the area. 

Rich Barcaskey: [01:22 – 02:08] Great. So, it's great to have a local with us. Makes us feel a little more in tune with everything you do. So, the past six months, I would assume for you and the rest of the AGC staff has been very busy. President Trump was inaugurated back in January and since then there's been countless executive orders. And then most recently, there's been negotiations over what the president terms as the one big, beautiful bill. So we'll start with that. With everything that's been going on in the past six months, what has it been like for you and your staff? What challenges have you faced in keeping up, especially with all the hundreds and hundreds of executive orders? 

Alex Etchen: [02:09 – 03:15] Yeah, busy is a great word to describe it. The biggest challenge we've had is figuring out what is real and what is rhetoric, what is truly unconventional and what is really standard operating procedures. You know, the way in which Trump operates out of the White House is very unconventional, but there's a lot of things that he's done that past presidents have done. And I'll give you an example. He got a lot of attention when he took office because he issued this regulatory freeze telling agencies no new rulemakings. Well, past presidents from at least the Bush administration, the Biden administration, they all did that when they took office because they're stopping any rules that were in the process from their predecessor. You mentioned executive orders. That's also kept us very busy. These executive orders, I like to remind folks, These are instructions to agencies on how they should carry out the president's agenda. President Trump is on pace to issue the most executive orders of any president in history. 

Rich Barcaskey: [03:16 – 03:47] Wow. So and I like how you say, you know, what is real and what is rhetoric? I think for most of our listeners, they'd be shocked that that there are some things in D.C. that are rhetoric and not not necessarily real. Are there any of the executive orders? And like you said, you know, he's on pace to be the most executive orders of any presidency. But Are there any executive orders that you would like to highlight that have, you know, particularly have an impact on the construction industry in general? 

Alex Etchen: [03:48 – 05:32] Sure. You know, so if you think back to the Biden administration, one of President Biden's pillars when he took office was combating climate change. And that's really where we've seen the biggest shift in policy going to President Trump. He's gone out of his way to systematically undo all of these policies put in place by President Biden. For construction, what we're really paying attention to is the project delivery side. President Trump has made clear he wants to deliver infrastructure projects faster and cut through the red tape on these environmental reviews. We have seen them completely rescind all of the NEPA regulations issued by the Council for Environmental Quality. We're hoping that this is an area that they can make some improvement and also really make some lasting improvements. If you remember, this was a priority of Trump during his first term. He issued a policy called One Federal Decision, which really set timelines for agencies going through these environmental reviews. It required them to set up a lead federal agency It put a timer of about two years on these bigger projects before they would have to make a decision. And one of the problems is that was issued as an executive order and through regulation. So, it was really pretty easy for President Biden to remove those executive orders and regulations. So, we're really hoping that the this time around, President Trump will work with Congress to make sure that some of these changes have a lasting effect. 

Rich Barcaskey: [05:34 – 06:30] And getting back to that, you know, real versus rhetoric too, is I know it's been a challenge just for us, so I know it's definitely even more of a challenge for you and your staff, but with executive orders that are coming out we receive a lot of calls saying okay like in particular to the one that that related to federal contracting and affirmative action does this mean you know contractors will call and say does this mean i don't have to do x anymore and it really isn't executive orders aren't really they're not necessarily law so it's not very clear and a lot of time you spend telling people, well, hold on, it depends. And then there's court cases. Just talk about the challenges. Are you seeing that? I would think that you are seeing that as well as how to advise contractors on what to do when you might not know exactly what it all means. 

Alex Etchen: [06:30 – 07:16] That's a great point, Rich. Right when President Trump took office earlier this year, they issued an executive order that they were ending all quote, illegal DEI initiatives and restoring merit-based hiring. And immediately we got a lot of questions from contractors. Does this mean I don't have to abide by the DBE or disadvantaged business enterprise program anymore? These contract goals. And, you know, it got back to the, you know, what does an executive order do and what doesn't it do? Well, executive orders can't override existing law. And so the DBE program, for example, is in law. It was passed by Congress and reaffirmed in subsequent transportation laws. 

Rich Barcaskey: [07:17 – 08:29] Gotcha, and I think that's an important point to make that distinction. So DBE is in law, whereas the executive order on affirmative action was an executive order. So you can, but people automatically believe that everything's tied in together, and if there's an executive order saying this goes away, then then everything goes away as well, so. So let's talk about your late spring summer where you were dealing with what, again, as I referred to as the one big beautiful bill. Last time I saw you, Allie Mills, who I hope is listening, president of CAWP, her and I were meeting with you because we were on our way to the White House for an event to promote the one big beautiful bill. Obviously, that bill passed this summer, signed into law on July 4th. Specifically, again, just by the name, one big, and it is big, beautiful bill. A lot of stuff in that. A lot of it didn't pertain to construction. But talk about just the things that were in that bill that impacted the construction industry. 

Alex Etchen: [08:31 – 10:04] Sure. So really the base of that bill did come down to tax. If you remember when President Trump took office in 2017, he pushed the Trump Tax Cuts, or the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as they were called. And a lot of those provisions were set, were either already expiring, but most of them were set to expire in 2026. And so that was really the base of the bill. This bill extended the individual tax rate. Extended that qualified business deduction of 20%, which was for those pass-through companies. It extended the estate tax exemption and indexed it to inflation. But in addition to the tax piece, you know, there was Also, some other provisions that were impactful that we're watching, you know, there was a lot on immigration, so there's 150 billion dollars for ice enforcement. There is 46 billion dollars for construction of the border wall. And then there's a few pieces on the workforce front. So, two things we had really been advocating for in the past was to expand Pell Grant eligibility for the short-term training programs for career and technical education programs, and then also expanding 529 savings plans to cover post-secondary training credentialing for licenses and non-governmental certifications. 

Rich Barcaskey: [10:05 – 10:49]  And from that standpoint too, just to touch on that workforce, there really is, when you deal with the federal government, I think state governments, it's probably very similar, but a lot of that workforce development concentration still focuses on, like you talked about the Pell Grants, but it talks about, it focuses on your traditional four-year college. Talk about the efforts that you guys have made in trying to redistribute or reallocate or redirect, if you will, that money. You touched on a little bit there, but that money to things that we would refer to as non-traditional, like apprenticeships and things, but in our industry is incredibly important and incredibly traditional. 

Alex Etchen: [10:50 – 11:24]  Sure. We at AGC call it the higher education bias. So essentially the federal government is spending five times as much encouraging young people to go to college compared to a career and technical education program. And so some of these changes were things that we had been asking for from Congress for a while, particularly around Pell Grants. And, you know, we continue to advocate for dedicated funding for these career and technical education programs, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. 

Rich Barcaskey: [11:24 – 11:50] And then, you know, with the one big beautiful bill, you touched on immigration. So there were, like I said, there were a lot of other things in it. Medicare, Medicaid, immigration, you heard a lot of that in the news. But from that construction tax perspective, you know, if it wasn't passed, what impact would that have had on our on our contractors, especially the mid-size smaller contractors, if it was not passed? 

Alex Etchen: [11:50 – 13:27] Yeah, so, you know, first I'd like to point out, you know, there was a lot of discussion about these tax cuts expiring that were in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And actually, it's not like the tax rate that most construction companies were paying would have just gone back to the way it was in, you know, 2016 before that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed. they actually would have seen an even higher rate than they were paying before because to pass those Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions, they actually closed a lot of the deductions and loopholes. So they would have paid a higher rate. Particularly, the number we've been saying is that most construction companies would have seen about a 20 percent tax increase if they had expired. Now, most construction companies are a pass-through business like an LLC, or an S corp or a partnership. So really that qualified business income deduction or QBI deduction of 20% is really important to these construction companies. The other one I always point to is the estate tax. There's always this idea that this is for billionaires to ensure that the government doesn't tax your estate, but You know, what I always will point out is that, you know, there's always the chance of an unexpected loss of a loved one that hadn't gone through that estate planning, which can be very costly. And it really doesn't take long for a construction company when the IRS is adding up the assets of the equipment, the commercial building, the construction equipment, it really doesn't take long to get to 15 million. Gotcha. 

Rich Barcaskey: [13:27 – 14:08] OK, so with that, we talked about the executive orders. We talked about the one big, beautiful bill. But as we know, in Washington, there's no rest for the weary. So looking forward, there are other important pieces of legislation on the horizon that will impact contractors. One that is critical to our membership because they are responsible for building and maintaining the roads and bridges throughout western Pennsylvania is the federal highway reauthorization. And I know that the AGC met with Transportation Secretary Duffy. What did you highlight as the critical needs for the next reauthorization? 

Alex Etchen: [14:08 – 16:00] Well, you know, first we just talked about the importance of these long-term transportation bills and how they provide certainty through the Highway Trust Fund for construction companies all across the country to invest in their workforce, invest in new equipment. The other piece we really spent a lot of time talking about was on work zone safety. This was one thing that was really not a big priority in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that we at AGC want to be a key portion of this new reauthorization. In particular, we're asking for a few different things. First of all, better data. Right now, the federal government really only looks at this problem through the lens of fatalities in a work zone and we want them to have more data like injuries in a work zone, intrusions into a work zone, near misses. Our members consistently tell us in surveys that this problem is getting worse and we want USDOT and Congress to pay more attention to this. We also think that there is a big education piece here. Some states across the country have made it a requirement that when you are a teen getting your driver's license, you have to do an online one-hour course about driving in and around a work zone. So we want Congress to take note of that, do something like that in this next bill. And then also find ways to encourage some of these other efforts out there, like speed cameras in work zones, which I know Pennsylvania has passed. The data from these laws in Pennsylvania and New York it's really showing how effective it is. So we really want them to take a look at this at the national level and figure out a way to encourage more states to pass laws like Pennsylvania. 

Rich Barcaskey: [16:01 – 17:09] Yeah, that's excellent, and that's a very important point. One of the things that you talk about, not fatalities are obviously awful, but there are other things that I think the traveling public doesn't understand. One of the stories that we had heard when we were pushing for the cameras in the work zone was we had taken a legislator out to a work zone. It was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. They talked about, you know, semis coming through and crashing. And one of the questions I asked was, well, who's responsible? Obviously that shuts down the job for the day. So it's delaying, you know, impacting the end of the project. But I said, who's responsible for actually removing those semis after they crash? And the contractor said it was actually up to them. So they would go in and remove it. So that equipment was being used to remove a tractor trailer truck rather than continuing to work on the road. So I think that's an important point is to there's more than just fatalities that need to be looked at. 

Alex Etchen: [17:09 – 17:35] And it's really a lagging indicator kind of as what you're describing. And you know if we had better data I think it would really help focus state DOTs across the country to further invest resources into corridors and areas and roadways that are about to undertake construction to put in some of these safety measures that can often be a little more expensive. 

Rich Barcaskey: [17:36 – 18:19] Great. And then finally, in what ways can our members of CAWP help with the AGC and all the efforts that they do in D.C. I mean, we always explain to our members that while we're here and we're local and we're looking at regulations that are pertinent to our contractors in this locality, it's so important to have somebody in D.C. doing that same thing for contractors. And sometimes I feel that contractors don't realize that's being done on their behalf. at the AGC, what can our contractors do to help you do what you do every day? 

Alex Etchen: [18:19 – 019:25] You know, the most obvious answer is talk to your members of Congress. You know, when you're talking about things like work zone safety and you're talking to your members of Congress from Pennsylvania, remind them this is something that the state has already done in terms of speed cameras. And so you're encouraging, you know, at the national level for them to follow their lead. We also make it easy for you. We send out what we call action alerts to AGC members across the country. You receive this email, and all you have to do is click a button, and it'll direct you to a site. And your name and address and everything will already be populated with a message to your members of Congress. You know, we have one right now on work zone safety. All you have to do is hit send. It'll go to your member of Congress and both of your senators. The nice thing is, though, we have that auto-populated message of what we're asking for in Works and Safety, but you can go in and put in your own personalized message at the beginning, talk about your company, talk about near misses that you've had on job sites or fatalities, whatever you wish to also share in addition to that message. 

Rich Barcaskey: [19:26 – 20:25] Great. we do try to promote that. I know you do that one on issues that happen in construction zones and then you also do a really good survey about critical needs of manpower in the industry. We try to encourage our members that that's incredibly important to have that data because you can tell the story but members of Congress also need that data as well. So, definitely, we appreciate your help. So, I did say final question, but I do have one more. So, as a guy with Western Pennsylvania roots, Steelers Camp has started. That is a critical, very critical time here in Western Pennsylvania. I think it's even more heightened with all the changes that have been made in the off-season. The Steelers usually try to keep things conservative, don't make a lot of changes. This offseason, it was absolutely the complete opposite. So what do you foresee with the 2025 Steelers season? 

Alex Etchen: [20:30 – 20:51] Well, first off, I'll just say it's impressive that Aaron Rodgers is still playing. I mean, I'm in my 40s also and can't imagine being out playing tackle football. But I'm hopeful and really optimistic. I hope they can have a good season. You know, Tom Brady proved that it can be done. And so maybe Aaron Rodgers will take his lead and follow in his footsteps. 

Rich Barcaskey: [20:51 – 21:11] Let's hope so. And then finally, so what's the record at the end of the year? What's your guess? Because there's a lot going around. I've heard, you know, don't make the playoffs. I've heard make the playoffs and maybe actually win a playoff game for the first time in a number of years. Your guess on what it's going to look like. 

Alex Etchen: [21:12 – 21:15] I'm managing my expectations. I want to actually win a playoff game or two. 

Rich Barcaskey: [21:15 – 22:00] There you go. Great. I have a neighbor whose dad watches the very first game, and then he says, oh, they're not even going to break 500. So that's kind of how we roll here. And then they'll win three, and then it's like, we're going to the Super Bowl and then ballpark. So I'm sure it's like that everywhere else around the country. But I think that, you know, that blood, that black and gold blood is, is a little more, is stronger than it is in other parts. So Alex, we really appreciate you sitting down with us this episode and letting us know what you're doing on behalf of our contractors. And I just, once again, want to thank you for participating and being a part of Constructing Connections. 

Alex Etchen: [22:01 – 22:02] Thanks for having me, Rich. 

Rich Barcaskey: [22:02 – 22:12] Thanks. This is Rich Barcaskey, Executive Director of Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania. Thanks for listening to this episode of Constructing Connections.