Philadelphia Construction Law Blog

The Pennsylvania Senate has passed House Bill 874 by a vote of 30-18. The version agreed upon by the Senate will now go back to the Pennsylvania House for a concurrence vote and then on to Governor Wolf to sign. Because the legislation passed through the Senate in substantially the same form as it left the House, there appears little chance the legislation will be hung up again before it hits Governor Wolf’s desk.

In Pennsylvania, the law currently provides an exception in the criminal code that prohibits the prosecution of the crimes of harassment, stalking, and threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction if those otherwise criminal acts are done as part of a labor dispute. Beginning last year, an effort was undertaken in the state legislature to close that loophole.

President Obama recently signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act into law. The bill had overwhelming support from all sectors of the construction labor workforce and was a bipartisan effort in both houses of Congress.

The federal government remains shut down as it currently stands. Although there is room for debate on whether the stalemate in Washington will end soon, the Army Corps of Engineers looks set to receive some additional funding towards water infrastructure when the government re-opens for business.

President Obama has signed the Drywall Safety Act of 2012, which was passed by the House and Senate last year. The legislation is designed to relieve some of the problems associated with tainted Chinese drywall that was, among other things, high in sulfur content. Another goal of the new law is to prevent the defective product from re-entering the U.S. market and causing further damage to property and the economy.

The General Assembly passed changes to the Pennsylvania Steel Products Procurement Act that Governor Corbett recently signed. The legislation (HB 1840), which will go into effect this month, effectively creates an exemption from the law’s requirement for certain listed items and directs the Department of General Services to issue a list on its website for those in the construction industry to check. The Steel Products Procurement Act requires that steel being used in public works projects in the Commonwealth be made in the U.S. To qualify as “made in the U.S.A.”, 75% of the cost to mine, produce, or manufacture the product must be incurred in the United States. The statutory definition of “public works” is broad and includes construction of all types as well as maintenance. The changes to the law create a range of exceptions to the “made in the U.S.A.” requirement for certain machinery and equipment. To be exempt, the DGS must certify in writing that an item qualifies for the exemption list because there are insufficient amounts of the steel product made in the U.S. to allow contractors to meet the requirement. The new provisions also charge the DGS with conducting an annual review of the list and the industry to update the list and to subsequently post that list on a publicly accessible website so that those putting in bids for public works projects can access it. Contractors involved in public works projects should be aware of this statute and not assume it can be […]

After years of doing little to change the Mechanic’s Lien Law, it seems the Pennsylvania Legislature now can’t leave it alone. Significant changes have gone into effect in the last several years, and the legislature has continued to dabble in it regularly.