Structural Cost Increases for federal "Build America Buy America Act"

[structuralengr89]

Does anyone have any info on the structural cost increases to projects conforming to the new federal "Build America Buy America Act"? Or any recent articles where this is addressed?

 

[JoelTXCive]

We have projects for TxDOT that have federal dollars in them. The BABA stuff has been very challenging; and is not resolved.

Our projects involve drainage facilities and stormwater pump stations. The BABA compliant pumps, generators, and electronic controls that have been located all require significant structural retrofits to the existing facilities. The cumulative cost impacts are potentially in the millions of dollars.

It's a big mess and the related projects have all been in limbo for several months.

I do not have any articles on BABA, but I'll ask around the office.

 

[JoelTXCive]

Speak of the devil.... The Wall Street Journal has a short article about BABA on their editorial page today (see attached)

The article just says BABA slows down projects, adds more bureaucracy, and has added significant costs to government projects.

 

[lexpatrie]

You want the news part of the paper, not the opinion page. That particular opinion page particularly.

I'm not entirely sure what the OP is after for that matter. There are perhaps logistical issues or documentation to be handled on "our" side (Structural), that's where my interest would lie, the cost belongs to the contractor and the estimator and the original project designer..... if you wanted something on the design/contracting side of things, I'd look for AISC, Modern Steel Construction, because they have fabricators as part of their audience, but their economics guy is a little slanted, even so.

You want to really gripe about cost and schedule overruns, look at all the nuclear plants that a) got built and b) never got finished, domestically. Let alone the land usage and the eventual cost to demolish them.