New Direction For Energy Independence, National Security, And Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

NEW DIRECTION FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT -- (House of Representatives - August 04, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Thank you, Mr. McKeon.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to this legislation. We have heard from many of our colleagues this morning about the flaws of this legislation across a range of policy areas. I would like to focus on one in particular that concerns many Members of the Committee on Education and Labor, and particularly the subcommittee on which I serve as ranking Republican, the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. That issue is, of course, that the application of Davis-Bacon prevailing wage requirements, which is expanded no less than five times in this bill.

I submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee which would have conditioned the effective dates of the Davis-Bacon expansions in this bill on the completion of a study by the GAO to determine how effective the Davis-Bacon wage system is, and in particular whether progress was being made on improving its known flaws. I will give my colleagues some background.

In 2004, the Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General examined the Wage and Hour Division's attempt to update the Davis-Bacon wage-gathering system, a system that the Department of Labor spent $22 million updating. The results were troubling.

The IG report stated: "Wage and fringe benefit data supplied wage and hour, and used in its surveys continue to have inaccuracies and may be biased. Further, prevailing wage decisions developed from the data are not timely.''

Indeed, the problems identified are dramatic. My amendment simply would have required the Government Accountability Office to examine the status of the Department of Labor's efforts to remedy these identified flaws and make progress implementing the IG's suggested reforms before we expand Davis-Bacon wages and its associated costs in the wholly new areas of law.

That is why I submitted my amendment to rules and why I am disappointed we are not debating it today. The Wilson amendment may not have solved all of the problems in this bill, but it would have at least made an effort to correct one significant issue that we know sorely needs fixing.

As the Democrat Congress endeavors to expand Davis-Bacon into unprecedented areas under this bill, states and private parties receiving loan guarantees, grants and bonds will now be required to comply with the act. That is an unprecedented expansion beyond the original purposes of the act. I urge my colleagues to vote "no.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source