In the course of my career working with federal contractors, I’ve seen it happen time and time again: a subcontractor violates an applicable prevailing wage statute (either the Davis-Bacon Act or the Service Contract Act) by failing to provide its employees with the required wages and/or fringe benefits. The Department of Labor gets involved, and […]
This is a good article. although it has a construction contractor focus, the principles can be applied to any industry. “But all this customer cares about is low price!” We hear this line daily as a defense of longheld beliefs that their darned customers just don’t care about value over price. Here’s a new belief […]
A renewable energy operator will soon begin development and construction on a nearly $140 million facility near Elk Grove that is expected to be complete in 2026. Ameresco, Inc., which describes itself as a cleantech integrator specializing in energy efficiency and renewable energy, announced this week in a news release that it would contract with […]
California’s highway department awarded an emergency contract to the Sacramento-based contractor after a slide temporarily stranded thousands of people over Easter weekend. The California Department of Transportation has awarded a $1 million emergency contract to Sacramento-based Teichert for initial safety and stabilization work on a washout that shut down a section of iconic Highway 1 […]
If you are a government contractor, odds are you have faced a situation where some aspect of the contract you were performing changed outside of your control, or you ran into something that neither you nor the government expected. As a result, your work requirements likely changed, and with that, your costs likely changed as […]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is warning vendors who wish to participate in USDA food purchase programs of a possible phishing scheme using fraudulent email messages. The fake emails look like they are solicitations for bids sent by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), which manages USDA’s food purchase programs. The threat actors have been […]
State departments of transportation use drones for construction-related tasks and face challenges related to new allowable drone manufacturers. By far the most common construction use is for road construction, particularly road widening, repair, and rerouting, as some states are tackling entirely new roads right now for both budget and capacity reasons. Drone tasks also include […]
The Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has become aware of a scam involving disguised or “spoofed” email addresses. Individuals claiming to be senior DOI officials have used such addresses to solicit fraudulent Requests for Quotations (RFQs). These are fake. The fraudsters seek RFQs for electronic equipment (Apple iPhones, […]
FRESNO, Calif. — The piling rig was in position, ready to drive a concrete pillar 40 feet into the ground. Just beyond the rig on this winter afternoon, trucks and cars continued streaming down State Road 198 in Hanford, separated from the construction site by white dividers. Then, the pile-driving began. Foot by foot, the rig’s […]
In 2019, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the development of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Program, which was then implemented in 2020 as an interim rule. We blogged about that way back in 2020. This program was designed to give a certification to contractors based on the depth and effectiveness of their cybersecurity […]