The National Association of Manufacturers told the Environmental Protection Agency that recently proposed changes to Clean Air Act regulations would remove bureaucratic hurdles for basic construction jobs for new and upgraded factories.
The changes would only impact non-emission activities and, therefore, maintain environmental protections, the manufacturers said.
The EPA’s proposed rule would “streamline permitting across the federal government to make it easier for manufacturers in the United States to grow and compete,” NAM Senior Director of Energy and Resources Policy Mike Davin said.
The update would apply to regulations for the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review air-permitting program, a preconstruction permit required for building or significantly modifying factories.
While the main goal is to ensure that factory, boiler and power plant emissions do not hurt air quality, the manufacturers said the current process unnecessarily restricts “non-controversial activities.”
The proposed revisions include updating the definition of “begin actual construction” and differentiating “between construction of a stationary source and construction of non-emitting components or structures,” according to the summary in the Federal Register.
Improving these definitions will “more clearly allow companies in the U.S. [to] move forward with the construction of non-emitting components and structures of their projects while a decision on required NSR permits is pending,” NAM told the EPA as part of the public comment on the proposal.
The manufacturers said the changes would help with the construction of structural foundations and concrete pads, the installation of piping and wiring and the building of walls and roofs for facilities that are not part of the “affected emissions units.”
Supreme Court asked to overturn free speech on private property precedent
The Goldwater Institute has filed a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a decades-old precedent that allows people to exercise their freedom of speech by trespassing on other people’s property.
The libertarian think tank said the precedent set in the 1980 high court decision known as PruneYard v. Robins wrongly gave people a “right” to use someone else’s property without permission.
The brief is part of a lawsuit challenging a California state court citing the precedent to allow a group to collect petition signatures in a privately-owned shopping center.
The property owners, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
The Goldwater Institute said that free speech means the government cannot silence you, but it does not mean other people have to provide you a platform.
“In the 40-plus years since PruneYard was decided, the Supreme Court has overruled major aspects of that decision — and state courts have almost entirely rejected it,” the institute said. “Yet, it remains on the books, and is regularly trotted out to empower people to trespass on property that isn’t theirs, on the theory that doing so is simply free speech.”
EU urged to halt deportations to third-country hubs
Human Rights Watch said European Union countries should stop deportations to third-country “return hubs” where they say they potentially receive poor treatment.
The EU can use return hubs when a migrant’s country of origin refuses to accept them.
The liberal advocacy group said the removal of migrants to third countries, which the European Parliament recently approved, “portends increased detention, forced removals and externalization.”
Officials in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands are considering using return hubs, which reportedly include Rwanda, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritania and Kazakhstan.
Builders hail court win on prevailing wage rules
The Associated Builders and Contractors praised the Department of Labor’s decision to drop its defense of challenges to a Biden-era expansion of requirements for contractors to pay construction workers a “prevailing wage” set by the government.
“In a victory for the construction industry, taxpayers and the rule of law, [the administration’s] order recognizes the illegality of former President Joe Biden’s efforts to expand Davis-Bacon requirements beyond the scope Congress set out,” said Kristen Swearingen, ABC’s vice president of government affairs.
Associated General Contractors of America sued in 2023 when the Biden administration expanded the reach of the Davis-Bacon Act, a 1931 law that gave the government the power to set prevailing wages for federal construction projects.
The Trump Labor Department recently decided to stop defending part of those 2023 regulations in court, essentially giving a win to the construction industry.
The construction industry group also called on the Labor Department to scrap all the 2023 rule changes that applied the prevailing wage requirement to more workers and situations.
The builders said erasing the 2023 expansion would be “a major step towards cutting red tape and improving the federal government’s delivery of critical construction projects, and to instead pursue commonsense reforms to prevailing wage regulations.”
• The Advocates column is a weekly look at the political action players who drive the debate and shape policy outcomes in Washington. Send tips to theadvocates@washingtontimes.com. Click here to receive The Advocates in your inbox each week.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.