Sen. Marshall speaks at Midwest Crane and Rigging in Olathe

At the roundtable, businessowners and business directors had the opportunity to tell Sen. Marshall of their concerns when it came to federal issues impacting their line of work. Issues included things like change orders, P3 bonding requirements, retainage, bid listings, executive permitting reform, workforce development, and the House Construction Procurement Caucus.

The discussion started with support for H.R. 2726, a bill that requires prompt payments to subcontractors and contractors alike for changing their work. This bill would allow subcontractors and contractors to charge 50 percent of the change order amount upfront to cover the overhead cost. Currently, it is typical for them to wait about 60 to 120 days before seeing an exchange of money. This bill would allow the process to be streamlined, more user-friendly, and allow better cashflow.

“In construction, that’s always been a major issue,” One constituent said. “We fund the job, we buy the materials for the job, we do the work, and then we have to wait to get paid. That’s been a longtime problem.”

Another item being worked on is being called the ‘Subs Act.’ This requires general contractors on federal projects that entertain a bid more than $100,000 to have to list that on their bid sheet when they turn in their final estimate to the government.

“What that does is it basically locks them in to using that subcontractor, because a lot of times what happens is they’ll take a bid from a subcontractor, and then once they’re awarded the project, they’ll shop the bid out to all its competitors and try to get a more aggressive pricing,” another constituent said. “So, to get them to list who they are going in with upfront will allow that to not occur, and we all fight bid shopping every day, whether it’s local or out of state, it doesn’t matter.”

They also pointed out that the government should want the highest quality, not the lowest bid.

Workforce development was another big issue discussed. Sen. Marshall had this to say about a potential solution:

“I think that our community colleges and our technical colleges are the solution. My wife and I are both community college graduates. I think we have just absolute gems in Johnson County Community College, in KCK Community College as well.”

He asked and learned that, while there are formal apprenticeship programs available, there is a dearth of people in these programs.

“I think the secret is working with the community colleges and the high schools,” Sen. Marshall added.

OSHA regulations were also brought up with the issue of age restrictions for specific jobs like driving vehicles that require a CDL, as well as the large amount of money that it takes to hire and train someone due to all the red tape.

Other issues included interest rates on insurance and reducing retention from the federal standpoint down to five percent so that insurance policies are still held to ensure contracts are completed while also reducing some of the strain on small businesses with the cashflow.

The final issue discussed had to do with energy as one constituent asked why we’re allowing a massive transfer of wealth to China when the U.S. has plenty of natural resources.

“We have a company right here in Olathe that manufactures mining equipment and their business struggles because their customers can’t expand their mining operations,” a constituent said. “The (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) EPA has put so many regulations in place that people I know who personally own mines can’t even do anything because those mines are basically shut down because there’s no current technology that allows them effectively to meet the EPA’s regulations.”

Sen. Marshall responded, stating the current administration is against everything the businessowners are for and that they’re going in the “wrong direction.” He also said everyone in the room wanted to leave the world a cleaner, healthier, and safer place than they found it and that these businessowners were doing an incredible job of that and going in the “right direction.”

“But if you try to go from zero to hundred miles an hour, it doesn’t work,” Sen. Marshall said. “In business, it never works. Slamming on the breaks going hundred miles an hour is not a good thing to do either. So, we’re feeling the impacts of these policies, it’s driving up the cost of business, we’re going in the wrong direction. In the nuclear world we’re buying three-fourths to 80 percent of our nuclear products from Russia now…. I couldn’t be more frustrated than I am right now, and again, I’m just going to say, elections have consequences. I’m committed to the environment, but I’m also committed to an affordable, reliable energy.”

Sen. Marshall added that he was in favor of trying wind energy, but it was not working out, stating it is ten times more expensive to transport electricity to St. Louis than to transport natural gas despite making the same amount of megawatts.

The morning ended with a photo op with Sen. Marshall on a red motorcycle.