Engineering Inc - March/April 2018 - 18

Wins on Capitol Hill
Perhaps the best-known examples of ACEC
achievements over the past two decades
are in the government advocacy area. "Our
advocacy, under the skillful leadership of
Steve Hall and a top-notch lobbying and
political team, has been second to none," says
Raymond. "All our programs-from advocacy
to education to communications-reinforce
each other, and the professional staff are
quick to support each other. I am so proud to
be one of them."
relentless in its advocacy of Qualifications-Based Selection
(QBS). The organization successfully lobbied the Federal Highway
Administration to prevent state DOTs from putting projects out
to bid in "reverse auctions," effectively defended numerous
challenges to QBS, including those from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, the U.S. Forest Service and other federal
agencies. ACEC has also worked effectively with its state
organizations to promote and protect QBS, and commissioned
a 2009 study by the University of Colorado and Georgia Tech,
which highlighted the benefits of QBS in terms of reduced costs
and project success.

Reducing Taxes-ACEC achieved a historic win for
engineering firms in the 2017 tax reform law. The legislation
lowers the corporate tax rate to 21 percent and creates a
20 percent tax deduction for passthrough firms, including
S corporations, partnerships and LLCs. In the original
House and Senate bills, engineering passthroughs were
limited in their access to the passthrough deduction, but
after ACEC's relentless lobbying, the final bill provided
engineering firms with full use of the deduction.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other
national print and TV media highlighted engineering firms
as big winners in the tax bill, compared to other industries,
including accountants, doctors, lawyers and financiers,

JAMES KEGELY

Expansion and Defense of QBS-ACEC has been

Raymond and 2012-2013 Chairman Ted Williams meet with Alaska Sen.
Lisa Murkowski on Capitol Hill in 2013 on key energy issues.

which did not receive full access to the 20 percent
passthrough deduction.
The 2004 passage of the American Jobs Creation
Act included a 9 percent tax break for domestic
manufacturing companies. ACEC successfully argued that
the deduction should apply to engineering firms, as well.
"The manufacturers were negotiating for this benefit,
and when we found out about it, we said, 'Wait a minute,
we're in the same situation in the services industry,'"
Raymond recalls. "Congress agreed with us, and they gave
us the deduction, too. That wouldn't have just happened
automatically. We found the hole, and we ran through it
and scored the points."

(continued from page 17)
subsequent years, each of the Member Organizations adopted the
new ACEC brand as their name and by doing so also subscribed
to a potentially more effective and mutually reinforcing alignment
between the national office and the state organizations.
"When I came to ACEC, relations between state organizations
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MARCH / APRIL 2018

and the national organization were strained, and what we've tried to
do is develop more of a family dynamic, where each part of the organization is bolstered by strengthening another part," says Raymond.
"Dave has listened to the leaders in the states," says Alison Davis,
executive director of ACEC/Oregon. "If someone has a comment

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