US Congress House Bill 3555 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 36-0)
Status: Introduced on September 17 2015 - 25% progression, died in committee
Action: 2016-03-23 - Referred to the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.
Pending: House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Act of 2015 This bill: (1) prohibits the use of funds made available by this Act, with specified exceptions, for a project for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron, steel, and manufactured goods used in such project are produced in the United States; and (2) requires all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors and subcontractors on federally-assisted projects to be paid wages at locally-prevailing rates. TITLE I--RELIEF FOR WORKERS AND BUSINESSES This title amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) restore the making work pay tax credit in 2015, and (2) allow 100% bonus depreciation for certain property acquired and placed in service before January 1, 2015. The title amends the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 to increase to $7.5 million the limit on the guarantee for contract surety bonds and on the liability for bonds obtained by fraud or misrepresentation. This increase expires on September 30, 2016. TITLE II--PUTTING WORKERS BACK ON THE JOB WHILE REBUILDING AND MODERNIZING AMERICA This title directs the Departments of Education and the Interior (for schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education) to reserve through FY2016 appropriated amounts to provide educational assistance to outlying areas based on their respective needs. The Department of Justice must carry out a competitive grant program for the hiring, rehiring, or retention of career law enforcement officers The Department of Education must award grants to states to modernize, renovate, or repair early learning or elementary or secondary education facilities and existing facilities at community colleges. This title makes funds available to the Department of Transportation for: (1) grants-in-aid for airport planning and development and noise compatibility planning projects under the airport improvement program; (2) Federal Aviation Administration Next Generation air traffic control system advancements; (3) highway and bridge restoration, repair, and construction projects and for passenger and freight rail transportation and port infrastructure projects; (4) grants for high-speed rail projects, capital investment grants for intercity passenger rail service, and grants to reduce congestion on intercity rail passenger transportation; (5) capital grants to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK); (6) transit capital assistance grants; (7) capital projects for existing fixed guideway system modernization, replacement and repair of buses and bus-related equipment, and construction of bus-related facilities; and (8) discretionary capital investment grants for surface transportation infrastructure. Building and Upgrading Infrastructure for Long-Term Development Act This bill establishes the American Infrastructure Financing Authority (AIFA) as a wholly-owned government corporation to make direct loans and loan guarantees to facilitate transportation, water, or energy infrastructure projects. This title: (1) requires infrastructure projects assisted under this Act to have costs that are reasonably anticipated to equal or exceed $100 million ($25 million for rural infrastructure projects), (2) requires the AIFA Chief Lending Officer to establish an Office of Rural Assistance to provide technical assistance in the development and financing of rural infrastructure projects and a Center for Excellence to provide such assistance to public sector borrowers in the development and financing of infrastructure projects, and (3) establishes an Office of Special Inspector General to audit and investigate the business activities of AIFA. This title amends the Internal Revenue Code to extend through 2018 the exemption from the alternative minimum tax for certain tax-exempt private activity bonds. This title appropriates funds for assistance to eligible entities, including state and local governments, qualified nonprofit organizations, businesses, or eligible consortia, for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties and for stabilization of affected neighborhoods (Project Rebuild). TITLE III--ASSISTANCE FOR THE UNEMPLOYED AND PATHWAYS BACK TO WORK Supporting Unemployed Workers Act of 2015 This title amends: (1) the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 to extend the emergency unemployment compensation (EUC) program until January 1, 2016; (2) the Assistance for Unemployed Workers and Struggling Families Act to extend through December 31, 2015, requirements that federal payments to states cover 100% of EUC; and (3) the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act to extend through December 31, 2015, the temporary increase in extended unemployment benefits for employees with 10 or more years of service and for employees with less than 10 years of service. The title establishes the Reemployment NOW program to facilitate the reemployment of individuals receiving emergency unemployment compensation (EUC claimants). A state may use its allotted funds to: (1) establish a Bridge to Work program to provide EUC claimants with short-term work experience placements with eligible employers; (2) provide a wage insurance program to pay, for up to two years, an EUC claimant who obtains reemployment up to 50% of the difference between the wages received at the time of work separation and the wages received for reemployment; and (3) provide a program of enhanced reemployment services to EUC claimants, including unemployed individuals who have exhausted their EUC rights. The Department of Labor must award grants to states for short-time compensation programs and develop model legislative language for use by states in developing, enacting, and implementing such programs. The work opportunity tax credit is expanded to include the hiring of long-term unemployed individuals (individuals who are unemployed and receiving unemployment compensation for six months or more). Pathways Back to Work Act of 2015 This bill establishes programs to subsidize employment for unemployed, low-income adults, to provide summer and year-round employment opportunities to low-income youth, and for work-based training. Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2015 This bill makes it an unlawful practice for certain employers to: (1) publish a job advertisement or announcement that includes provisions indicating that an individual's status as unemployed disqualifies the individual for employment or that the employer will not consider or hire an individual for employment based on such status, (2) fail or refuse to consider or hire an individual because of such status, or (3) direct or request that an employment agency take an individual's status into account to disqualify an applicant for consideration for employment or when screening or referring employees. The bill makes it an unlawful practice for an employment agency to commit similar acts, including to: (1) screen, or fail or refuse to consider or refer, an individual for employment because of the individual's unemployed status; or (2) limit, segregate, or classify any such individual in any manner that would limit access to job information or consideration, screening, or referral for jobs. The bill makes it unlawful for any employer or employment agency to: (1) interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of any right provided under this Act; or (2) fail or refuse to hire, discharge, or otherwise discriminate against an employee because such individual opposed any practice made unlawful by this Act or asserted any right under it. TITLE IV--OFFSETS This title amends the Internal Revenue Code to provide for offsets against decreases in revenue by: (1) limiting tax deductions and other tax exclusions for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income exceeds $200,000 ($250,000 for married taxpayers filing a joint return), (2) treating income received by a partner from an investment services partnership interest as ordinary income for income tax purposes, (3) treating all general aviation aircraft (including corporate jets) as seven-year property for depreciation purposes; (4) denying the foreign tax credit to dual capacity taxpayers; and (5) increasing the period for amortizing geological and geophysical expenditures. The title repeals, after 2015, certain tax expenditures for the oil and gas industry, including: (1) the tax deduction for intangible drilling and development costs for oil and gas wells; (2) the tax deduction for tertiary injectant expenditures; (3) percentage depletion for oil and gas wells; (4) the tax deduction for income from activities relating to oil, natural gas, or any primary product thereof; (5) the exemption from limitations on passive activity losses; and (6) the tax credits for enhanced oil recovery and for producing oil and gas from marginal wells. The title amends the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), as amended by the Budget Control Act of 2011, to repeal its budget goal enforcement requirements (sequestration mandate).

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Act of 2015

Rep. Frederica Wilson [D-FL]	Rep. Alma Adams [D-NC]	Rep. Joyce Beatty [D-OH]	Rep. Corrine Brown [D-FL]
Rep. G. Butterfield [D-NC]	Rep. John Conyers [D-MI]	Rep. Elijah Cummings [D-MD]	Rep. Rosa DeLauro [D-CT]
Rep. Donna Edwards [D-MD]	Rep. Eleanor Norton [D-DC]	Rep. Eliot Engel [D-NY]	Rep. Chaka Fattah [D-PA]
Rep. Lois Frankel [D-FL]	Rep. Marcia Fudge [D-OH]	Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham [D-NM]	Rep. Alcee Hastings [D-FL]
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-TX]	Rep. Hakeem Jeffries [D-NY]	Rep. Marcy Kaptur [D-OH]	Rep. John Larson [D-CT]
Rep. Barbara Lee [D-CA]	Rep. Betty McCollum [D-MN]	Rep. Gregory Meeks [D-NY]	Rep. Donald Payne [D-NJ]
Rep. Mark Pocan [D-WI]	Rep. Charles Rangel [D-NY]	Rep. Gregorio Sablan [D-MP]	Rep. Janice Schakowsky [D-IL]
Rep. Robert Scott [D-VA]	Rep. Danny Davis [D-IL]	Rep. Raul Grijalva [D-AZ]	Rep. Mark Takano [D-CA]
Rep. Tony Cardenas [D-CA]	Rep. Judy Chu [D-CA]	Rep. Sanford Bishop [D-GA]	Rep. Andre Carson [D-IN]

Date	Chamber	Action
2016-03-23	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.
2016-03-23	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.
2016-03-23	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.
2015-11-03	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.
2015-09-18	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
2015-09-18	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials.
2015-09-18	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.
2015-09-18	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.
2015-09-18	House	Referred to the Subcommittee on Aviation.
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Budget
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Oversight and Government Reform
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Administration
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Financial Services
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Transportation and Infrastructure
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Judiciary
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Education and the Workforce
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Small Business
2015-09-17	House	Referred to House Ways and Means
2015-09-17	House	Referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the Committees on Small Business, Education and the Workforce, the Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure, Financial Services, House Administration, Oversight and Government Reform, and the Budget, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
2015-09-17	House	Introduced in House

HB2714 (Related) 2015-11-16 - Referred to the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.
HB2889 (Related) 2015-06-25 - Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
SB1506 (Related) 2015-06-04 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
SB1589 (Related) 2015-06-16 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
SB1686 (Related) 2015-06-25 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.

Type	Source
Summary	https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/3555/all-info
Text	https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr3555/BILLS-114hr3555ih.pdf