Don Nickles: “I appreciate where he is coming from--the private sector, the era that believes that individuals and businesses know how…”

“I appreciate where he is coming from--the private sector, the era that believes that individuals and businesses know how to set labor rates better than the Federal Government. He happens to be right. This does not keep the law as it is. As a matter of fact, this expands Davis-Bacon. It goes well beyond any scope of the original passage of Davis-Bacon, because it says that fair labor standards--or ``the administrator will have prevailing wage rates provided under this part including any assistance derived from repayments to the State loan fund.'' That is all State money. So what we are doing is expanding the Federal mandate of Davis-Bacon, and that mandates high labor rates to the States. It is an unfunded State mandate. States are going to be saying: Wait a minute, we have paid into this fund; that is our money, but you are mandating that we have the Federal Government set the labor rates on these projects when we are spending our own money. That is not right.”