Watch Our Post-Election Briefing from ACEC’s Advocacy Team

More than 500 ACEC members dialed in last Wednesday to a post-election online briefing by the Council's Advocacy team. Led by Executive Vice President Steve Hall and Political Affairs Vice President Dave Bender, the briefing focused on how the results of the 2024 election will affect the engineering industry and engineering firms, namely around the twin issues set to dominate the agenda in the 119^th Congress: infrastructure and taxes. The briefing can be viewed in its entirety here.

November 5 was a good night for Republicans, winning the White House and both houses of Congress. It also was a good night for ACEC's Congressional champions on both sides of the aisle. Hall said there remains a good bit of legislative business on deck for the lame duck session through the end of the year, but he expects that business to be completed fairly quickly. "The top of our priority list has been restoring deductibility of R&D expenses," said Hall, adding further that with the Republican win a final decision on R&D will be debated as part of a larger tax reform effort in 2025.

That larger tax debate will take center stage next year, when major elements of the 2017 tax bill expire. "The entire personal side of the code will expire [at the end of 2025] unless Congress acts," Hall said, including the 20 percent deduction for S corps and other passthrough firms that ACEC secured in the 2017 law. "The corporate tax code doesn't expire, but we've been anticipating everything is going to be on the table." The national debt - currently nearly $36 trillion - will loom large in the tax debate. "The cost of continuing all the expiring provisions is about $5 trillion," he said. "We don't know yet if this new Congress and the new administration are going to demand we pay for this or find offsets…What are the tradeoffs going to be?"

Infrastructure is also on the agenda in the next Congress. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is set to expire in September 2026, and Hall predicted that another package of the same size and scope is unlikely. But, he said, "Congress has to do a surface transportation bill…Does it become the catalyst for something bigger? It's possible. Sometimes when Congress comes together on a good bipartisan package, that becomes a train that pulls a few additional things." ACEC already is partnering with industry stakeholder allies on common messaging and goals. Hall said that this legislation could present an opportunity for ACEC to move priorities such as promoting more lump sum contracts among State DOTs and workforce.

ACEC's advocacy team reviewed a number of regulatory actions expected with the new Administration, some with potentially positive impacts in terms of expanding energy markets and streamlining environmental reviews. At the same time looming challenges were identified, including a slowdown in H-1B visa renewals and processing, as well as slower contracting decisions by federal clients as agencies conform to the new Administration's priorities. Hall ended the session with two promises to members, the first being that this post-election briefing would not be a one-and-done but, rather, an ongoing conversation. The second was that ACEC would continue to engage and partner with association allies in the built environment space to ensure that our industry's interests are protected. "We're going to stay on offense and reinforce [our] value proposition," he said.