Depending on where you live, owners of construction companies may have a new dilemma to address with their employees: medicinal marijuana.  The conflict puts the company’s safety and employment policies often dictated by federal law directly up against what may be an individual’s rights under state law. 

Medicinal Marijuana versus Construction Safety Policies

Stephanie Simon reports in this morning’s Wall Street

It really is impossible to put your arms around the number of green building and energy performance policies and codes that are sprouting up all across the nation.  When a project involves private commercial development or public investment, one of the most discussed issues is whether the cost of obtaining LEED certification from the U.S.

I wonder who that sad little scrap of paper is?  Do you know?  Oh, yeah, he’s just a bill … he’s just a bill on capitol hill.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=H-eYBZFEzf8%26hl%3Den_US%26fs%3D1%26rel%3D0%26color1%3D0xe1600f%26color2%3D0xfebd01%26border%3D1

You knew that Nashville was the Music City, right? Reminiscent of the "Schoolhouse Rocks" days, last night I attended the kick off dinner for the AGC of

On December 24, 2009, the United States Senate voted to pass its own version of the health care package.  You have probably heard cries about the length of the bill (1,990 pages).  You have probably heard the cries about the costs.  But have you heard about an amendment that may significantly affect the construction industry?

Read Between the Lines

According

TN Commissioner Leslie NewmanBack in November, I wrote about a Tennessee Attorney General Opinion that addressed the new workers’ compensation law in Tennessee that requires sole proprietors to carry workers’ compensation insurance on themselves. (Traditionally, there was an exclusion for sole proprietors.)  Just after release of the AG-Opinion, the leadership in the state house and senate came to an agreement to

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday issued a final rule in an effort to reduce water pollution on construction sites. The rule, which is set to take effect in February 2010 over a four-year period, is targeted to improve the quality of water nationwide.  According to a press release by the EPA, the impact is significant: 

Construction activities like clearing, excavating and

Illigal Immigrant Grounds for Breach of Contract?Last week Scott Judy, Editor-in-Chief of Southeast Construction magazine, sent me a tweet about a courthouse project in Jacksonsville, Florida where a large number of fake IDs surfaced on the site.   As reported in the article, Federal officials discovered about 100 fake documents after looking at the paperwork collected by the city.  The mayor was expected to forward

Following on my earlier post … nevermind.  Leadership of the Tennessee House and Senate recently reached a bipartisan agreement to immediately introduce legislation in January 2010 to suspend the effective date of Public Chapter 1041 from January 1, 2010 to February 28, 2011.  As reported last week, the new law was enacted to require a sole proprietor