ABC Maine Summer 2017 Newsletter ABC Maine Reports Thank you to our Annual RED Sponsors Thank you to our Annual WHITE Sponsors Please remember you can view all Newsletters at ABC Maine News & Information Included in this issue: Tool Box Safety Talks Legislative Update Member to Member Events & Training ************ Toolbox Talks Heat Related Emergencies House Keeping Lightning Safety The ABC’s of Fire Extinguishers ************ Government Affairs – 1st Regular Session Review ABC enjoyed a good 1st Regular Session of the 128th Maine State Legislature. By keeping a strong presence at the Statehouse and encouraging members to engage in the issues, our relationships in the House, Senate and Administration continued to grow and our reputation as the go-to construction trade association expanded significantly with our work on the “Keep Maine Competitive” business coalition to repeal the impacts of ballot question 2. Needless to say, ABC Maine continues to have great standing in the legislative and political arena. Below is a recap of the session. Just another 1st Regular Session of the Maine State Legislature; NOT! When this session began early last January, all indications were that it would be routine, predictable. No doubt some fireworks to make it interesting, but, nothing too crazy. As usual a ton of bills were submitted, with titles and language covering the typical spectrum of topics. Sure, there were some more bizarre than you might normally see, but, all-in-all, everything seemed par for the course. A couple of major exceptions to this were the two previous fall ballot questions (minimum wage & tip credit and the tax on income over 200K) that were slated to face major controversy in the planned legislative challenges to overturn them. And, of course, the Solar issue was on the agenda “again”. As the session went on, nothing proved routine or predictable and by the closing days things started to get downright ugly in the halls of the Capitol. Probably the worst it has been in many years. A sample of the Bills of Specific Interest to ABC Members: LD 306, An Act to Require State Compliance with Federal REAL ID Guidelines- Public Law 2017, Chapter 27: This new law authorizes the Secretary of State to issue, at the request of the applicant, a driver’s license which is compliant with federal REAL ID guidelines, and which may make use of facial-recognition technology. The law further authorizes the Secretary of State to issue identification cards which are compliant with federal REAL ID guidelines for those individuals who do not possess a driver’s license. Finally, it makes certain modifications to the fee schedule for new licenses issued pursuant to the federal REAL ID guidelines. The law will bring Maine into compliance with federal REAL ID requirements, which the Department of Homeland Security will begin enforcing, in stages, in July 2017. Maine has sought a waiver from certain deadlines related to compliance with federal REAL ID guidelines as the implementation of the new licenses and identification cards is expected to take some time. LD 37, An Act To Provide a Career and Technical Education Training Option for Plumbers-Public Law 2017, Chapter 4: This law allows the Plumbers' Examining Board to issue a journeyman-in-training license to a person who provides the board with satisfactory evidence of completion of a plumbing course at a career and technical education program as a secondary student consisting of one year or two semesters. LD 445, An Act To Encourage Maine Consumers To Comparison-shop for Certain Health Care Procedures and To Lower Health Care Costs-Public Law 2017, Chapter 232 This new law encourages patients to consider health care cost comparisons for health care services. The law requires that the patient must be notified, at the time a particular health care service is recommended, that the patient has the right to obtain services from a different provider. The notice must also include information about health care transparency tools provided by the patient’s insurance carrier, and specific information about the medical procedure including codes or other terminology to enable the patient to compare costs. The law also requires any health insurance carrier in Maine to develop a price transparency tool to be available online and via a toll-free telephone number. A health insurance carrier may however, comply with this requirement by directing plan holders to the MHDO website. The law also provides that a carrier shall provide the patient with the ability to obtain an estimated cost that is based on the description of the service. Carriers must establish, at a minimum, for all small group health plans compatible with a health savings account, a health plan design in which enrollees are directly incentivized to shop for low-cost, high quality participating providers for comparable health care services. A “comparable health care service” means nonemergency, outpatient health care services in the following categories: physical and occupational therapy, radiology and imaging, laboratory, and infusion therapy services. If an enrollee covered under a health plan other than an HMO plan elects to obtain a comparable health care service from an out-of-network provider at a price that is the same or less than the statewide average for the same covered health care service, the carrier shall allow the enrollee to obtain the service from the out-of-network provider at the provider’s charge and, upon request by the enrollee, shall apply the payments made by the enrollee for that comparable health care service toward the enrollee’s deductible and out-of-pocket maximum as specified in the enrollee’s health plan as if the health care services had been provided by an in-network provider. LD 1382, An Act To Require Responsible Contracting on Public Construction Projects-Died in Non-Concurrence: This bill, sponsored by Representative Benjamin Collings of Portland died in non-concurrence between the House and Senate. The Maine House of Representative passed the Minority Ought to Pass as Amended report and the Maine Senate passed the Ought Not to Pass report. Associated Builders of Maine, Associated General Contractors of Maine and the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services opposed this piece of legislation. The bill would have created a new process for certification of a responsible contractor which would require additional state resources and many of the certification conditions are already requirements of bidding. This bill would have changed the public bidding process eliminating the filed bid process. Under contract award and public review, it would also prevent a project from issuing a contract until 21 days after bid award assuming a challenge hasn’t been presented. LD 1403, An Act Regarding Drug Testing in the Transportation Sector-Dead: This bill, sponsored by Senator Troy Jackson of Aroostook County is dead. Both the Maine Senate and the Maine House of Representative passed the Majority Ought Not to Pass report. Associated Builders of Maine, Associated General Contractors of Maine, the Maine Department of Transportation and the Maine Department of Labor opposed this piece of legislation. This bill would require all flaggers, including those who are privately employed, at state funded or federally funded highway construction sites on public ways to have substance abuse testing, which may be based on probable cause or random. This bill singled out the construction industry over other crafts and trades, didn’t include pre-employment screening and would have required a large amount of funding from the State. LD 1564, An Act To Conform State Law to Federal Law While Promoting Safe Working Environments for Minors- Public Law 2017, Chapter 286: This law amends current laws relating to minors 14 and 15 years of age to allow them to work in bowling alleys and movie theaters and to clarify their employment in bakeries and hotels. It moves the occupational restrictions for minors 16 and 17 years of age to the restrictions for minors 14 and 15 years of age. The law adds establishments that cultivate, produce or sell marijuana or products in which marijuana is an ingredient and recreational marijuana social clubs to the list of employment and occupations not suitable for minors. This law authorizes the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Standards to revoke a work permit. This law clarifies that graduates of vocational programs who are under 18 years of age can work in the occupations for which they were trained. This law was enacted as emergency legislation without the Governor’s signature and took effect on July 9, 2017. The 2017-2018 Biennium Budget LD 390, An Act Making Unified Appropriations and Allocations for the Expenditures of State Government, General Fund and Other Funds and Changing Certain Provisions of the Law Necessary to the Proper Operations of State Government for the Fiscal Years Ending June 30, 2018 and June 30, 2019 - Public Law 2017, Chapter 284: Early in the morning on the Fourth of July, the Maine Legislature enacted a new biennial budget with the Governor’s signature to end a four-day-long shutdown, and with it repealed the contentious 3% tax on incomes over $200,000 that would have crippled Maine’s small business community as well as stand in the way of economic progress. The shutdown began Friday, June 30th at midnight, when 60 House Republicans refused to support a compromise budget agreed to by Senate Republicans and Democrats in both chambers. For three days, House Republicans and Governor Paul LePage put forwarded a list of requests that the budget would need to incorporate for both to support. Republicans and Democrats have both said that they don’t believe this budget is perfect, but agree that with divided government, they were never going to get a budget everyone loved, but a budget everyone could live with.