On July 1, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed major infrastructure legislation, H.R. 3684, the INVEST (Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation) in America Act, on a largely partisan 221-201 vote. The roughly $715 billion, five-year surface-transportation and water-infrastructure bill includes authorizations for federal highway, transit and safety programs, […]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. employers had 9.3 million job openings available at the end of April 2021, the highest number recorded since the government started collecting the data in 2000. The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), the largest advocacy organization representing the interests of small and independent businesses in the […]

On March 10, 2021, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Michael Regan as the next administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by a 66-34 vote, with 16 Republicans joining Democrats in support. Administrator Regan, who previously served as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, will oversee developing and enforcing regulations, […]

In December of 2000, Congress authorized a Small Business Administration (SBA) program to support women-owned businesses in bidding for federal contracts. The Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Program allows government contracting officers to set aside contracts specifically for qualifying women-owned businesses in underrepresented and substantially underrepresented North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes. A […]

On December 27, 2020, President Trump signed into law the “Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act” (the Economic Aid Act) as part of a larger legislative package funding the federal government through September 30, 2021. The Economic Aid Act includes a provision that reopens the Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) Paycheck Protection […]