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Out With The Old, In With the New: A Flurry of Recent Executive Orders May Greatly Affect the Construction Industry New presidential administrations inevitably bring change. But the scale of change brought about by the flurry of Executive Orders issued by the Trump administration in its first days...
As a national leader in life sciences innovation, Philadelphia has seen significant expansion in research and development infrastructure. The city’s transformation is driven by substantial investments in life sciences construction, particularly in the areas of University City and Center City, where...
Between Biden’s “most pro-union president ever” term and Trump’s recent federal policy changes done more by chainsaw than scalpel, Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) have endured a tumultuous path recently. Used primarily on construction projects, PLAs refer to pre-hire contractor collective bargaining...
Earlier this year, the American Institute of Architects (“ AIA”) released updated form contract documents for traditional design-build (“ Traditional DB”) construction projects and introduced a new set of progressive design-build (“ Progressive DB”) forms. In a design-build project, the owner...
In the long male-dominated construction industry, women have comprised only a small percentage of the trades workforce and leadership positions. Despite significant progress in broadening female representation in the industry, gender stereotypes, workplace discrimination, and legal barriers continue...
In a flurry of executive orders starting at inauguration, the Trump White House has dramatically shifted administrative agencies’ operations, including those of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and its implementation of the pending “Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in...
The 2025 steel and aluminum tariffs are already reshaping cost structures in the construction sector, adding financial pressures to an industry that had hoped for more stability this year. On March 4, 2025, the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico, with a...
“Substantial Completion” is a critical concept in construction contracts and one as to which parties often have contrary conceptions. Finding a definition of Substantial Completion acceptable to both the owner and the construction contractor on a project (not to mention one that aligns with the term...
James Rohlfing authored the feature story, “Illinois Legislature Makes Notice of Mechanics Lien Easier” in the Summer 2024 issue of the Illinois Mechanical & Specialty Contractors Association’s Substance publication. The article addresses how the Illinois legislature has expanded the methods for...
Introduction Following the hottest June on record and with temperatures rising as we approach the dog days of summer, OSHA recently issued a long-awaited proposed rule creating standards for heat injury and illness prevention in outdoor and indoor settings (the “Proposed HIIP Rule”). Created...
The Supreme Court’s highly-anticipated decision in Loper Bright Enters v. Raimondo overturned decades-old precedent requiring courts under Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. to defer to federal agency interpretations of an ambiguous statute. This ruling will have momentous...
Section 179D of the Internal Revenue Code, first enacted in 2006, grants qualifying building owners or tenants of commercial buildings a federal tax deduction for the installation of energy-efficient features and systems in existing or new-build projects. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”)...
Flow-down (or “pass-through” or “conduit”) clauses are a common feature in construction contracts, particularly in projects involving multiple tiers of contracts. These clauses are intended to ensure the terms and conditions between the prime contractor and owner apply to all lower tiers of...
"Solar energy construction has increased significantly in recent years across the United States, with some forecasters expecting another rise of at least 75% for 2024. This growth in solar projects results in good measure from existing and additional tax credits continued and implemented through the...
On November 30, 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision in the case of Acuity v. M/I Homes of Chicago, LLC, et al., 2023 IL 129087 with significant implications for insurance coverage of construction defects under commercial general liability (CGL) policies.
A recent Maryland appellate decision arising from an insurance company’s exercise of subrogation rights against negligent subcontractors in connection with tornado damage to a warehouse illustrates the pitfalls of waiver of subrogation clauses in construction contracts. In XL Insurance America, Inc...
The work of subcontractors is largely guided by the written contracts to which they agree, making those contracts important to their company’s success. Ideally, contracts should be balanced, and they should allocate risk to the party able to control the risk, but that is often not the case. Though...
On May 25, 2023, the Illinois legislature passed HB 2878, a colossal 195-page bill, that impacts numerous public procurement laws, including curbing the percentage of retainage that local governments may withhold from contractors on public construction projects in Illinois. On June 22, 2023, the...
Contractors could start seeing six-figure fines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the next few months thanks to sweeping policy changes implemented earlier this year. In a press release and two internal memoranda issued January 26, 2023, the Department of Labor (DOL)...