As faithful and faithless readers of unbossed know, the Bush Administration suspended Davis Bacon wages for workers cleaning up after Katrina (and some other laws as well).

Less publicized was the fact that in its haste, the Administration forgot to declare a national emergency, a mandatory requirement for suspending Davis Bacon, as Rep. George Miller reminds us.

Ooops!! Proof that riding bicycles in the hot Waco, Texas (aka Crawford) sun is not good for the memory.

But there's more. There's always more.

The Congressional Research Office has just released an interesting report on Katrina and Davis-Bacon so far, available here.

My personal favorite part of the report is this:

Perhaps the most frequently asked question concerning the Davis-Bacon Act is: Would the federal government (and the taxpayers) save money if the Davis-Bacon Act were repealed or modified to narrow its scope? The short answer is: No one really knows. Conversely, might Davis-Bacon result in savings to the federal government in its purchases of construction. That, too, would seem to be an open question. One might like to say, forthrightly, that a change in the statute could have a positive or a negative impact. However, the state of current research would probably be insufficient to justify just an
assertion.

But we do know that it was not intended to do that since there was no requirement for contractors to pass their savings from cutting wages on to the taxpayers.

The Summary of Davis-Bacon Suspension and Its Legislative Aftermath [Order Code RS22288] (October 3, 2005) states:

The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 (as amended) requires that not less than the locally prevailing wage be paid to workers engaged in federal contract construction. A higher rate may be required, under the market, in order to secure a qualified workforce.

During the last week of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina gathered strength in the Atlantic and moved against the gulf states. On September 8, 2005, amid the devastation left in Katrina’s wake, President George W. Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act as it applies to certain jurisdictions in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Although the President has the authority, under Section 6 of the Act, to render such suspensions during a national emergency, that authority has rarely been utilized. This report analyzes the legislative aftermath of the suspension. It will be updated as
conditions warrant.

This document is available through Open CRS. Thanks goodness for them.

• davis-bacon
• katrina