To avoid any complications during the renewal season, the United States Citizenship Attestation form be completed and sent in now to be put in your file.

Every license and registration holder will need to complete a United States Citizenship Attestation form complete it and submit via fax, mail or email.  Fax #402-471-4297, email SED.OfficeStaff@nebraska.gov mail State Electrical Division 800 South 13th Street, Suite 100 P.O. Box 96066, Lincoln, NE 68509-5066.

For your convenience I have attached the form, if you have already filled it out pass it on to someone you know to make the license renewal period coming up in mid October go as smooth as possible.

UPDATED HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM REQUIREMENTS EFFECTIVE JUNE 15: An Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) final rule requiring employers to notify workersof all hexavalent chromium exposure findings regardless of whether the finding is above the permissible exposure limit (PEL) is scheduled to go into effect June 15.  The final rule is a revision to the notification requirements under the February 2006 hexavalent chromium rule and was implemented as the result of a February 2009 court decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  The court directed OSHA to either justify its requirement that employers only have to notify employees when the hexavalent chromium levels exceeded the permissible limit of 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air or to rectify concerns.  Instead of lowering the permissible exposure limit to one microgram as suggested, OSHA amended the final rule to require stricter employer reporting requirements.

Under the final rule, when employers run required tests to determine the 8-hour time weighted average exposure for each employee that comes in contact with hexavalent chromium, that employer must make the results available to each employee even if the employees are not exposed to levels above the PEL.  In addition to the final rule, OSHA is implementing a national emphasis programfocused on hexavalent chromium and toxic substances that often occur alongside it.  The NEP will apply to all businesses, including those with fewer than 10 employees.

ABC OPPOSES BAILOUT OF MULTI-EMPLOYER PENSIONS: ABC May 26 opposed the Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act of 2010 (S. 3157), which is meant to bail out under-funded multi-employer pension plans.  ABC opposed the bill in a letter sent to members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee before a May 27 hearing.  The bill is still awaiting action by the Senate.

ABC pointed out that under the bill the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation would have the authority to take over the pension obligations of employers who have withdrawn from the plans and pay the benefits out of taxpayer dollars – essentially offering deliberately underfunded rank-and-file union pensions plans a taxpayer bailout.

“While we realize how severely underfunded these pension funds are, we feel this problem was foreseeable and that the American taxpayer should not be forced to shoulder this economic burden,” ABC stated in the letter.  “With the unemployment rate at 10.2 percent and the federal deficit at an all time high, forcing the taxpayer to clean up the mess of these pension funds is beyond the realm of fair.”

CONTRACT DOCUMENT UPDATE:In December, 2009, the Supreme Court of New York issued a decision against a construction contractor and provided a reminder to all Nebraska contractors that it is best to clarify contract document ambiguities when doing work with the federal government before the project is started.  In the New York case, the painting of a bridge required “minimum vertical clearance of 14 feet” above all lanes of the road.  However, the two outer lanes of traffic were 18 inches higher than the four inner lanes even though a straight line above all lanes of traffic was shown on the drawings which accompanied the contract.  The contractor argued that the documents prepared by the city Department of Transportation should be construed against the DOT as the party who drafted the language.  The court agreed that an ambiguity existed but it ruled against the contractor determining that the ambiguity was obvious on its face and because the contractor failed to seek a pre-bid clarification, it assumed that the risk of its own interpretation was the correct one.  In contrast, in October, 2004, the United States Court of Federal Claims ruled against the government on a project involving the construction of a dormitory at Offutt AFB because the ambiguity in the contract was “neither glaring nor obvious.”  The lesson of these cases is, however, obvious.  The contract documents should be carefully reviewed to see if the project is consistently and clearly described.  If any ambiguity exists in the documents or the drawings, a prudent contractor should seek a pre-bid clarification.                                         By Bill Harding, Chapter Attorney