The Official Publication of the Power & Communication Contractors Association AI Tools in Contract Risk Management: A Practical Guide NULCA: When System Design No Longer Matches Industry Demand PCCA Tackles Top Priorities in Washington this Spring Sixth Circuit Pushes Back on Cemex Ruling 2nd Quarter 2026 PCCA Shines During 2026 Convention
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PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 5 2nd Quarter 2026 Official Publication of the Power & Communication Contractors Association Publication Staff PO Box 638 Churchton, Maryland 20733 (800) 542-PCCA • www.pccaweb.org ©2026 Power & Communication Contractors Association Publisher Timothy Wagner Editor Michael Ancell Associate Editor Caroline Ferguson Advertising Sales Stacy Bowdring Photography Jorge de Casanova Information Technology Greg Smela Accounting James Wagner Layout & Design Joseph Wagner Officer Directors Board of Directors Andy Christine Sellenriek Construction, Inc. Josh DeBruine Michels Corporation Tucker Dotson (Advisory) Ditch Witch John Fluharty (Advisory) Troy Construction Matt Fredericks Champion Fiberglass Matthew Gabrielse Sheboygan, Wis. Robin Gilbertson J&R Underground, LLC Jake Jeffords Vermeer Corporation Tate Johnson MYR Group Tommy Muse, Jr. Muse & Associates Nate Newsome GPRS, LLC. Rob Pribyl MP Nexlevel, LLC Sam Stephens Tjader & Highstrom Jason Tyler Brooks Construction Co., LLC Billy Vincent ElectriCom, Inc. Michael Whitebread J.J. Kane Auctioneers Chris Wozniak Waunakee, Wis. Chairman Craig Amerine Amerine Utilities Construction, Inc Chairman-Elect Heath Sellenriek Sellenriek Construction 1st Vice Chairman Chase Lapcinski Push, Inc. 2nd Vice Chairman John Audi Mears Group, Inc. Treasurer Garrett Akin Brooks Construction Co., LLC Secretary Nick Anderson Anderson Underground, Inc. NULCA: When System Design No Longer Matches Industry Demand 10 The National Utility Locating Contractors Association is no longer quietly hinting that the 811 system has problems. In their blunt call for reform, the message is clear: the current approach is no longer working, and every stakeholder needs to start taking accountability if meaningful change is to happen. PCCA Shines During 2026 Convention 21 By Caroline Ferguson More than 440 PCCA members, families, and friends traded jobsites for sunshine in March as they gathered in Hollywood, Fla., for the association’s convention. Industry leaders tackled workforce pressures, infrastructure growth, excavation safety, and a rapidly changing business environment shaping utility construction. And while education and advocacy remained front and center, golf outings, fishing trips, and waterfront receptions gave attendees plenty of opportunities to reconnect outside the meeting rooms. Inside Washington 7 Human Resources | By Greg Guidry 13 Risk Management: A Practical Guide | By Billy Nelson 17 Power News 36 Broadband News 39 Safety Watch 44 News Briefs 47 PCCA Member News 54 Advertiser Index 58 New PCCA Members 58 Industry Calendar 58
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PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 7 In the second quarter of 2026, Congress and the Trump administration remained heavily focused on broadband deployment, energy infrastructure, workforce policy, and regulatory reform—all issues with major implications for the power and communications construction industry. PCCA’s advocacy team has remained actively engaged on behalf of members building and maintaining America’s critical utility infrastructure while advancing the policy priorities highlighted during PCCA’s Washington Fly-In in early February. Broadband Infrastructure Funding Slog PCCA and industry stakeholders continue to express frustration over the slow pace of groundbreaking for broadband infrastructure projects funded through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program established under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). As of May 1, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has approved state broadband office proposals for all states except California and Illinois. Oklahoma and Mississippi are the only other remaining states awaiting National Institute of Standards and Technology approval, the next phase in the BEAD implementation process, while Washington and the District of Columbia have yet to complete the final step of signing NTIA award agreements. When all state award agreements are executed, an estimated $19.94 billion in BEAD deployment spend will serve 3,949,186 locations across America. That leaves approximately $21.66 billion in unobligated BEAD funding, what NTIA refers to as “benefit of the bargain savings” following 2025 program changes by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that required states to revise and resubmit portions of their BEAD proposals. NTIA is now developing guidance on how those remaining funds may be used to further support the program. In February, PCCA submitted recommendations to NTIA encouraging the agency to use remaining BEAD funds to support permitting reform and agency capacity, workforce development, underground infrastructure locating and mapping, and long-term network performance accountability measures. PCCA emphasized that these investments would help address Continued on page 8 Inside Washington Jaime Steve Government Affairs Solutions jsteve@gasolutions.net (202) 841-5493 BEAD, Permit Reform, and Workforce Policy Take Center Stage in D.C. This Spring Ben Brubeck Government Affairs Solutions bbrubeck@gasolutions.net (703) 472-7850
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 8 Inside Washington Continued from page 7 the primary barriers to timely, safe, and durable broadband deployment. Likewise, PCCA supported congressional efforts to ensure the non-deployed funding will be allocated to the states and not spent on unrelated programs. PCCA presumes NTIA will release guidance in the summer that may provide funding for PCCA’s recommendations. Underground Damage Prevention Progress On April 29, the U.S. Senate passed the PCCA-supported PIPELINE Safety Act (S. 2975), which contains language incentivizing states to implement effective underground utility damage prevention policies (Section 221). Similar language is contained in Section 18 of its companion bill in the House, the bipartisan PIPES Act of 2025 (H.R. 5301), which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed last year. H.R. 5301 needs additional approval from the Energy and Commerce Committee to get a vote on the House floor. Separately, in March, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) held a hearing on the narrower Pipeline Safety Authorization Act of 2026. Section 9 of this bill also contains PCCA-supported damage prevention language, and PCCA highlighted to the committee the importance of strong state one-call enforcement programs, improved utility locate accuracy, and practical policies that help prevent excavation damage to underground infrastructure. If either House measure advances through the Energy and Commerce Committee and passes the full House, lawmakers will need to reconcile differences with the Senate-passed PIPELINE Safety Act before final passage. The IIJA, which currently authorizes federal highway and transit programs, expires on September 30, 2026. Congress is tasked with passing a new multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill before this date to prevent funding gaps and address the potential insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund. House Transportation and Infrastructure and Senate Commerce committee staff have signaled a willingness to add the PIPES Act to this must-pass bill, if needed. As underground utility construction activity continues increasing because of federal infrastructure investments, PCCA is advocating for balanced policies that improve coordination among operators, locators, and excavators without creating unnecessary burdens for contractors. Damage prevention remains one of the association’s top priorities because of the significant public safety, service reliability, and economic impacts associated with utility strikes. Permitting Reform Talks Continue One of the biggest developments this spring has been the renewed bipartisan and bicameral push for federal permitting reform. Congressional leaders continue discussing bipartisan proposals intended to accelerate environmental reviews, reduce duplicative agency processes, and provide more certainty for infrastructure projects. PCCA joined broad industry coalitions urging lawmakers to advance reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and modernize the federal permitting system to help address delays that continue slowing utility, broadband, and energy construction nationwide. Attention remains focused on the Senate, where key committee leaders are preparing to release bipartisan permitting reform legislation. Workforce Development and Labor Policy Activity Heats Up The PCCA government affairs team has been especially active on workforce development and labor policy this spring. PCCA submitted comments April 16 on a U.S. Department of Education proposed rule aimed at expanding Pell Grant eligibility for short-term workforce training programs through Workforce Pell initiatives passed in the budget reconciliation bill signed into law last July, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and later rebranded the Working Families Tax Plan. PCCA also supported the Streamlining Timely Apprenticeship Registration and Transparency (START) Act, introduced by Senate Republicans and aimed at establishing consistent guidelines for the federal and state governments to register prospective apprenticeship programs. Expanding access to skilled trades workforce development remains a critical priority as PCCA contractors across the industry continue facing workforce shortages. PCCA also engaged on several labor and employment proposals impacting construction employers. PCCA commented As Congress moves into the summer legislative season, lawmakers are expected to focus heavily on government funding legislation and to continue debating BEAD funding, permitting reform, workforce and safety initiatives, and energy infrastructure policy with an eye on the calendar.
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 9 on proposed U.S. Department of Labor regulations addressing joint-employer standards and independent contractor classification. In April, PCCA launched a grassroots campaign opposing the Faster Labor Contracts Act, legislation that would needlessly expand federal authority and favor unions during private-sector labor negotiations. PCCA continues expressing concerns about the Trump administration’s continuation of controversial Biden-era policies promoting government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) on federal and federally assisted construction projects. A recent decision by the 11th Circuit against construction industry plaintiffs challenging the federal PLA mandate suggests that the issue may ultimately need to be resolved through continued litigation or future executive action. Despite that ruling, federal contractors continue achieving success challenging agency-specific PLA mandates through bid protests filed at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Meanwhile, PCCA and industry stakeholders continue supporting the Fair and Open Competition Act (H.R. 1209/S. 537), while congressional Democrats have introduced legislation requiring PLAs on certain data center construction projects. In April, President Trump nominated James Macy to fill the remaining Republican seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In addition, David Prouty, a Biden nominee whose term is set to expire in August 2026, has been renominated for another five-year term on the Board. Confirmation of both nominees would restore a functioning Board majority and could lead to reconsideration of several Biden-era labor decisions affecting employers and union organizing policy. Meanwhile, OSHA’s proposed federal heat standard remains a major concern for the construction industry. In April, PCCA supported the Heat Workforce Standards Act, Senate legislation intended to stop or substantially revise the Biden administration’s pending federal heat standard, which many contractors believe would create substantial compliance burdens while duplicating existing employer obligations under OSHA’s General Duty Clause. OSHA, which is reviewing more than 45,000 comments submitted on the Biden rule, announced a continued aggressive heat-related enforcement activity through its National Emphasis Program. Tariffs and Trade Policy Uncertainty President Trump’s April 2 trade policy actions significantly changed how tariffs apply to steel, aluminum, and copper, materials foundational to the power and communications construction industry. The administration’s evolving tariff actions involving construction-related materials continue creating uncertainty surrounding project costs and supply chains. PCCA continues monitoring these developments closely. Congress Eyes Midterm Elections As Congress moves into the summer legislative season, lawmakers are expected to focus heavily on government funding legislation and to continue debating BEAD funding, permitting reform, workforce and safety initiatives, and energy and infrastructure policy with an eye on the calendar. While election day is roughly 24 weeks away, the number of actual days Congress is in session (legislative days) is significantly lower, with both chambers typically taking extensive state work periods in August, September, and October. The Iran war, gasoline prices, interest rates, presidential approval ratings, a record number of congressional retirements, party fundraising, redistricting efforts, and a busy primary season will heavily shape the outcome of House and Senate midterm elections, which have historically not been favorable to the party in the White House. PCCA will remain actively engaged to ensure the voice of the power and communications construction industry continues to be represented throughout these debates in Washington. Cleaners for Every Project • Fiber Optic Cables • Hand and Tool • Insulated Rubber Goods • Live Line Tool www.polywater.com 800-328-9384 651-430-2270
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 10 During the late 1960s and 1970s, there was a round of rapid infrastructure buildout in the U.S. Workers were frequently hitting buried utility lines because, for the most part, it was hard to tell what was in the dirt beneath them. States began to create their own methods to prevent underground strikes, generally in the form of a “one-call” network. By the 1980s to 1990s, stakeholders were seeing reduced damage rates, but there was still no nationwide, centralized system. Eventually, the federal government stepped in. The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act, signed into law in 2002, required states to strengthen damage prevention efforts and improve one-call systems. Efforts were further consolidated in 2005 when 811 was officially dedicated as the universal nationwide number for all one-call centers. This brings us to today, and the same system is in place, but instead of handling a million requests a year, it now handles more than 43 million. The National Utility Locating Contractors Association (NULCA) has been among the most vocal in raising concerns about this, especially in a recently published white paper, “The System is Designed to Fail: A Call for Structural Reform in the 811 System.” The System is Designed to Fail “The System is Designed to Fail. We’re Done Pretending Otherwise” was the tagline for the article, setting the tone for a blunt and, at times, uncomfortable assessment of the current state of damage prevention. At the core of NULCA’s argument is the idea that the system is being asked to do more than it was originally built to handle, and not enough action is being taken to fix it: “This is not a locator problem. This is not an excavator problem. This is a structural failure that has been building for fifty years while every stakeholder group found reasons to look the other way.” These concerns are not being raised in a vacuum. There is a large performance gap between the 811’s intent and its realworld performance, and it is becoming increasingly evident as data collection has grown over the years. At the center of NULCA’s argument is a direct and unapologetic assertion: the failures seen across the damage prevention system are not always isolated mistakes or bad actors; they are the predictable outcome of how the one-call network is currently structured in the marketplace. The result is a system that is scaling demand without scaling capacity or process. Large-scale infrastructure projects, multi-utility corridors, and congested urban environments are subject to the same turnaround expectations as routine residential tickets, with locators expected to complete work within the 48-hour windows regardless of scope. One example provided in the white paper was a ticket covering 464 million square feet, or more than 8,000 football fields. “That is not a ticket. That is an ambush. And the locating company received it the same way they receive every ticket: when it appeared in their queue. No reasonable person looks at that and concludes the system is working.” NULCA describes the persistent workforce gap in hiring locators, and as ticket demand grows, that gap has only widened, creating a clear misalignment between workload and capacity. The result is predictable: technicians in the field are often forced to take operational shortcuts, not out of negligence, but because unrealistic workloads and time constraints leave them little choice. A small residential dig and a large-scale infrastructure project often move through the same queue, with the same time constraints, and compete for the same limited resources. This mismatch between expectation and reality creates conditions where thoroughness is sacrificed in favor of speed: “It is the direct output of a system that made that outcome inevitable. And we helped build that system by accepting the contracts that funded it. We own that. We are naming it out loud. We are committing to change it. Now let’s talk about what the rest of this industry needs to own.” According to NULCA, one of the more overlooked challenges within the 811 system is the cost to request a locate, which is none. While this was originally intended to encourage compliance and improve safety, it has also created unintended consequences. With no direct cost associated with submitting a locate request, there is little incentive to limit tickets to necessary or imminent work only. Contractors can submit large volumes of requests well in advance, for projects that may be delayed, scaled back, or never materialize at all. “Here is the truth that nobody in this industry has said plainly enough: Any system that allows an excavator to subNULCA: When System Design No Longer Matches Industry Demand By Caroline Ferguson
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 11 mit unlimited work orders at zero cost, with no consequence for scope inflation, no accountability for tickets that never generate a single shovel of dirt, and a legal requirement that someone respond to all of it within two business days—that system is not broken. It is functioning precisely as designed. And it was designed to fail.” The system’s failures are made even more apparent when considering how much of the underlying data was created before modern tools even existed. GPS-based locating and mapping tools began to emerge in the late 1990s and early 2000s, enabling the digital recording and tracking of underground infrastructure with far greater precision. Yet much of the infrastructure data in circulation predates those advancements, built using methods that lacked today’s level of accuracy and, in many cases, is never fully updated by facility owners. As a result, even the most advanced tools are often layered over outdated or incomplete information, creating a critical breakdown between capability and reality. “One facility owner acknowledged this directly during NULCA’s research: ‘We’re the first to admit our records aren’t always correct.’ Many of your maps were built before GPS-grade accuracy existed. They have not been updated. And every day a technician goes into the field with inaccurate records, you are setting them up to fail, and setting up whoever is digging to get hurt,” NULCA wrote. “There is no accreditation program, no training standard, and no workforce retention initiative that can offset sending a technician into the field with a map that puts the gas main on the wrong side of the road.” Problems in Rural Areas As infrastructure buildout continues to accelerate, it is only predictable that more incidents will continue to occur unless steps are taken to fix a system that was never designed to handle this volume. It’s expensive to locate, the system is overwhelmed, and the data is outdated. This struggle is concentrated in rural communities, where there are substantial investment opportunities for telecommunications and energy infrastructure, but little to no established locator workforce. “In one documented example, a locating company serving a rural territory found out a major fiber build had started when tickets began going late, and complaints arrived. By the time the full scope was understood, the company faced a binary choice: mobilize technicians from other markets at significant expense, or fall further behind and accept the consequences,” NULCA wrote. “There was no time to hire, train, and deploy before the project was over. This is not a failure of the locating company’s planning. It is a failure of a system with no mechanism for advance notice, no financial structure to fund surge response, and no regulatory framework that creates accountability for the operators and construction companies who could share schedule information early but typically don’t.” According to NULCA, another structural pressure point lies in how work is extended and funded within the system. In some states, renewal tickets now make up a significant share of overall volume. In their provided example of California, roughly 40 percent of tickets are renewals that extend existing markings for another 28 days without requiring new field verification. With unlimited renewals permitted, markings that may have degraded, shifted, or been disturbed remain in circulation as if they are still reliable. At the same time, the financial structure behind locating work reinforces these risks. When utilities push contracts through procurement processes structured to continually drive down costs, the downstream impacts are predictable: contractors are underfunded, technicians are overloaded, and turnover increases. Crews are rebuilt with less-experienced workers who are still learning a complex job under tight timelines, creating conditions in which errors are far more likely. These are not isolated issues. They are systemic choices that shape how the work is performed and, ultimately, how risk is distributed in the field. These are all problems with defined solutions; it’ll just take industry-wide effort to implement them. As NULCA lists, mapping must be prioritized because, as noted before, there is little that can be done if maps show underground lines several feet away from where they are marked. Genuine and thorough marking can only be done when there is a local locator workforce appropriately equipped to handle the volume. But at the end of the day, fixing this problem will require alignment across an industry that has long operated in silos. As NULCA makes clear, the system is producing exactly what it was structured to produce. The solutions are not theoretical; they are well understood and increasingly urgent. Until the system evolves to match the scale and complexity of today’s infrastructure demands, the same failures will recur. “This system is designed to fail. We have the data. We have the case studies. We are here to fix it. We are asking every stakeholder to decide whether they are here for the same reason, or whether they are here to protect the system that built this problem in the first place.” “The time for talk is over. The action starts now.”
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PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 13 On April 22, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a new proposed rule to clarify when joint-employer liability exists under the Fair Labor Standards Act, aiming to establish a nationwide standard. Contractors need to be familiar with this proposed rule since joint employment is often present on construction projects. The good news is that the proposed rule makes it easier to avoid being sued as a joint employer. The rule also incorporates the joint-employer standards into the rules implementing the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA). The proposal sets forth a four-factor test for vertical joint employment that recognizes the relevance of a potential joint employer’s reserved right to control but also emphasizes that actual exercise of control is more relevant to determining joint-employer status. The proposed rule would further clarify that common business arrangements, such as franchisor arrangements and requirements to comply with general legal obligations or health and safety standards, do not alone establish joint-employer status. The DOL states that the proposal reflects the “commonality” between federal court precedents and resolves a circuit split to create a nationwide standard. Defining Joint-Employer Liability According to the DOL, the proposed rule would establish a nationwide standard for use by the DOL’s investigators and enforcement personnel, promote clarity and uniformity for employers and employees, reduce litigation, and ensure that joint-employer status determinations under FMLA and MSPA regulations align with the DOL’s FLSA analysis and the FLSA’s employment definitions. Under the FLSA, when two or more employers are found to be joint employers, those employers are jointly and severally liable for any wages, damages, and other relief that may be owed to workers, including pay for all hours worked for all joint employers and any overtime premiums that may be due. Similarly, regulations under the FMLA, which adopt the FLSA’s definitions of “employ” and “employee,” require that joint employers provide the leave and job reinstatement protections under the FMLA. Regulations under the MSPA, which provide employment and wage protections for most farmworkers, recognize that the term “employ” includes joint employment. An Evolving JointEmployer Standard The proposed rule is the DOL’s first attempt to define its interpretation of joint-employer liability under the FLSA since July 2021, when the Biden administration rescinded a prior DOL joint-employer rule amid a federal court challenge. The prior joint-employer rule, issued in January 2020 during President Trump’s first term, set out a four-part balancing test similar to the DOL’s new proposed rule that evaluated “the potential joint employer’s exercise of control over the terms and conditions of the employee’s work.” That rule focused not on the potential joint employer’s “ability, power, or right” to control but on whether the employer actually exercised control. However, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York largely vacated that 2020 rule, finding that its narrowed interpretation of joint-employer status contradicted the broad definitions of “employer,” “employee,” and “employ” in the FLSA. On July 30, 2021, the DOL formally rescinded the 2020 rule. The DOL later dropped its appeal, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the case as moot. Like the 2020 rule, the DOL’s new proposed joint-employer rule distinguishes vertical joint employment, where an employee is “jointly employed by two or more employers that simultaneously benefit from the employee’s work,” such as traditional staffing agency/client or contractor/subcontractor relationships, and horizontal joint employment, where an employee works separate hours for two or more employers in the same workweek, but the employers are “sufficiently associated with each other.” Human Resources Greg Guidry Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart greg.guidry@ogletree.com (337) 769-6583 Labor Department Issues Proposed Rule on Joint-Employer Status Continued on page 14
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 14 The new proposed rule attempts to avoid the 2020 rule’s pitfalls, recognizing that the FLSA’s definitions for “employer,” “employee,” and “employ” and a potential joint employer’s reserved right to control an employee are relevant to the joint-employer analysis. Vertical Joint Employment: Four-Factor Test The proposed rule would, like the 2020 rule, establish a four-factor test based on federal case law to determine where vertical joint employment exists, where no single factor would be dispositive and the ultimate determination of jointemployer status would depend on all facts in the case. The test would turn on whether the potential joint employer: • “hires or fires the employee;” • “supervises and controls the employee’s work schedule or conditions of employment to a substantial degree;” • “determines the employee’s rate and method of payment;” and • “maintains the employee’s employment records.” Much like the DOL’s independent contractor rule proposed in February 2026, the joint-employer rule explains that additional factors may be relevant, but that a unanimous finding on the four main factors in either direction would establish a “substantial likelihood” regarding joint-employment status. Unlike the 2020 rule, which required a potential joint employer to actually exercise control, the proposed rule would state that an employer’s “ability, power, or reserved right to act in relation to the employee is relevant for determining joint employer status.” (Emphasis added). However, the proposed rule states that “the potential joint employer’s actual exercise of control is more relevant than such ability, power, or right.” (Emphasis added). The DOL argues in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that this is a “more nuanced position” and “is more consistent with the FLSA and longstanding caselaw.” Horizontal Joint Employment: ‘Sufficiently Associated’ Where there is horizontal joint employment, employees’ total hours worked in a week for each employer must be aggregated for FLSA compliance, and each employer would be “jointly and severally liable” for wages due under the FLSA, including any overtime premiums based on the aggregated hours. The proposed rule largely retains the long-standing Continued on page 14 Human Resources Continued from page 13
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 15 analysis from the pre-2020 regulations for horizontal joint employment, which focuses on the relationship between employers based on all the facts and circumstances. Under the proposed rule, two employers would be considered “sufficiently associated” if: • “there is an arrangement between them to share [an] employee’s services;” • “one employer is acting directly or indirectly in the interest of the other employer in relation to the employee;” or • “they share control of the employee, directly or indirectly, by reason of the fact that one employer controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with the other employer.” Excluding Common Business Practices The new proposed rule, like the 2020 rule, seeks to exclude certain common general business models, which, “standing alone,” would not “categorically or in the abstract make joint employer status more or less likely under the FLSA, FMLA, or MSPA”: • Operating as a franchisor or brand-and-supply arrangements or similar business models; • Contractual provisions requiring compliance with general legal obligations or health and safety standards; • Requiring quality control standards to protect brand reputation; and • Providing sample employee handbooks, association health/ retirement plans, or participating in apprenticeship programs. The DOL’s proposed rule is not final and, if finalized, would provide only interpretive guidance for WHD’s enforcement activities. Courts can and will apply their own standards in litigation regarding joint-employer liability. Nevertheless, employers may want to evaluate their relationships with staffing agencies, subcontractors, franchisees, and other entities and consider where joint-employment questions could arise. Additionally, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) also recently issued a final rule for joint-employer liability under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). That rule, which the NLRA issued without notice and comment, focuses on whether employers “share or codetermine the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment.” Employers and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to comment on DOL’s new proposed rule, including the four-factor test for vertical joint employment and proposed revisions to the FMLA and MSPA regulations. Comments are due by June 22, 2026. IN. OUT. INVOICE. With optimized hydraulic efficiency, up to 40% more downhole horsepower and 53% faster carriage speed than its predecessor, the JT21 gives you more speed and power to move on to the next job faster than ever before. DITCHWITCH.COM/JT21 ©2026 The Charles Machine Works, Inc.
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PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 17 Risk Management Organizations across industries, including construction and energy companies, are under real pressure to do more contract work with fewer people. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help, but whether they reduce risk or create it depends almost entirely on who is using them and how. The following is a practical summary of where these tools add value, where they create exposure, and how to deploy them responsibly. How They Work AI tools used in contract risk management generally fall into three categories: 1. General‑purpose large language model (LLM) chatbots; 2. Purpose‑built legal platforms that apply LLMs to curated playbooks and workflows; and 3. Project‑management systems that extract and track contract obligations. All three types of tools rely on probabilistic pattern recognition to generate statistically useful responses to data‑rich prompts, an approach that, when combined with sufficient computing power, can significantly increase both the efficiency and consistency of a company’s contract risk management process. While these tools can be extremely helpful, they are not a replacement for human judgment or professional expertise. They merely generate convincing, but not necessarily well reasoned or practically useful, language through modeling. This limitation has produced high-profile failures in the legal context, including instances of attorneys submitting court filings citing completely fabricated cases,¹ and, more recently, a CEO losing a $250 million dispute due to his reliance on AI‑generated legal advice.² In each example, the issue was not that the LLM failed to generate internally consistent or persuasive text, but rather that the unsupervised output was disconnected from reality or proper context. Examples such as these demonstrate why LLM‑based tools should be used to support contract negotiators and decision‑makers, rather than to operate autonomously, in high‑stakes settings such as legal matters, contractual negotiations, or other business decisions. Good Use Cases The strongest use cases for AI in contract risk management are repetitive, well-defined tasks where an experienced professional retains strategic oversight and the cost of an occasional error is manageable. Here are three use cases that we have seen work well in practice. 1. Obligation extraction and tracking. First, one of the strongest applications of AI is tracking notice deadlines, documentation requirements, milestone obligations, and other project management data. These tools can give senior leaders portfolio level visibility without requiring manual tracking of each contract, while helping project managers identify and organize milestones and tasks without having to parse contract language directly. This is a particularly effective use of AI because it leverages the technology’s core strengths (large document summarization, data organization, and integration with legacy project management systems) while simultaneously reducing the risk of human error and the time spent performing those same tasks manually. The result is meaningful time savings and an added layer of redundancy that aids in compliance and mitigates breach risk. 2. Routine interpretation. Another solid use case for AI is routine, low stakes interpretation of the contract documents governing a particular project. For example, a foreman who needs to confirm responsibility for site cleanup under a contract should not have to pause work while waiting for a specialist to respond. An LLM-based tool can quickly locate the relevant provision, analyze it in the context of the contract documents as a whole (including precedent and flow-down provisions), and provide a “good enough” plain language interpretation. In AI Tools in Contract Risk Management: A Practical Guide By Billy Nelson, EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants Continued on page 18
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 18 Risk Management Continued from page 17 this context, an automated translation is “good enough” because identifying the correct answer mostly requires a straightforward reading and summarization of contract language rather than nuanced legal judgment, and the cost of error is relatively low. By contrast, where the stakes are higher (such as responding to a jobsite personal injury or determining whether a subcontractor’s insurance coverage is compliant) the same foreman would be wise to seek expert advice rather than rely on the AI tool’s interpretation of the contract documents. 3. Expert directed drafting and playbook implementation. Finally, LLM-based tools (especially purpose-built applications for legal use) are well suited for execution level contract drafting tasks such as reversing party names, aligning clauses with approved playbook positions, adjusting the direction of risk transfer, and cross-checking internal references. These are routine, high‑volume tasks that mostly involve application of predefined constraints, rules, or playbooks that can be automated to increase throughput without displacing expert judgment. Whether the benefit of this use case is realized, however, depends on the user’s competence in prompting the LLM‑based tool and evaluating its output based on a solid understanding of the negotiation strategy, the business relationship, and how individual provisions interact within the project’s broader risk‑management framework. Bad Use Cases The weakest use cases for AI tools in contract risk management are those involving nuanced judgment, strategic tradeoffs, or contextual factors that cannot be fully captured in an AI tool prompt. 1. Negotiation strategy and risk positioning. First, one of the weakest uses of AI in contract risk management is developing project‑specific risk positions and contract negotiation strategies. The issue is not that AI tools lack drafting capability; purpose‑built tools, in particular, can generate internally consistent, jurisdiction‑specific risk transfer language that would satisfy an experienced contract reviewer on its face. The problem is that AI tools (typically) lack visibility into the strategic inputs that determine what language should be drafted in the first place. Those inputs include relative bargaining position, whether the available insurance program can support the proposed indemnity obligations, how courts in the relevant jurisdiction have treated similar provisions, and how aggressively to press an issue given the long‑term value of the business relationship. As a result, when asked to develop negotiation or risk‑allocation strategy independently, AI tools tend to produce generic positions that appear reasonable in isolation but, in context, undermine leverage, concede priority issues, or create misalignment between contractual risk transfer and the available insurance program. 2. Holistic contract review. During contract negotiations, AI tools should not be relied upon for autonomous contract review or markup by non‑experts. Effective review and drafting require an understanding of how individual provisions interact to implement an overall risk strategy within the business context, project realities, and the parties’ relationship (contextual judgment that AI tools typically cannot replicate when operating autonomously). AI contract‑editing tools, particularly those based on foundation‑model LLMs, tend to analyze provisions in isolation and at a high level of abstraction, which causes them to miss drafting details that drive claims and disputes in practice. Examples include exceptions buried in boilerplate that swallow an otherwise clear rule, unusually defined terms that expand or contract a provision’s risk allocation, flow‑down requirements that are not implemented across the contracting chain, and atypical indemnity obligations that create exposure to uninsured losses. Because experienced reviewers understand how particular language has played out in real disputes, they are better positioned to identify these issues, especially given the risk that polished, authoritative‑sounding AI output can create a false sense of security to non-experts. 3. Claims and litigation. Finally, one of the riskiest use cases for AI tools is in claims management and litigation preparation. Effective claims management requires an expert-level understanding of venue tendencies, procedural posture, witness credibility, quality of counsel, advocacy strategy, and a range of intangibles that cannot be meaningfully prompted into an AI tool (particularly by someone without claims/litigation experience). Thus, although AI tools might be useful for claims advocates, risk managers, and attorneys to partially automate certain aspects of their work, their output should not be relied upon without expert human level oversight. Separate and equally serious are the confidentiality risks associated with using AI tools in claims and dispute‑related work. Uploading sensitive contract materials, claim files, or strategic communications into consumer‑facing platforms can compromise attorney‑client privilege and create discoverable records, in some cases extending to the
PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 19 prompts themselves and revealing litigation strategy or the author’s state of mind. These risks exist regardless of the user’s level of expertise and apply across all phases of contract administration, not just litigation, underscoring the need for clear, enforceable policies governing what the type of information or materials that may (and may not) be uploaded to or generated by an AI tool. Integration into the Contract Risk Management Process In sum, integrating AI into a contract risk management process effectively means deploying AI at specific points in the workflow that are amenable to automation while keeping expert judgment in the loop for anything nuanced or strategic. In practice, this may include: 1. Using an AI tool to co‑draft scopes of work with technical experts during proposal development, subject to qualified human review before submission; 2. Using an AI tool to implement standard playbook positions during negotiations while counsel reviews all material changes and exercises independent judgment on deviations; or 3. Using an AI tool to analyze contract documents, extract and organize deliverables and milestones, and track them within a project‑management application. Across each phase of the process, AI tools function best as force multipliers for a company’s subject‑matter experts (i.e., attorneys, risk managers, and engineers) rather than as substitutes for them. Ultimately, identifying where AI can be integrated effectively into the contract management workflow comes down to a simple question: Is the person using the AI tool capable of recognizing when the output is wrong? Billy Nelson works with EPIC clients across the full spectrum of contract risk management issues impacting contractors in the construction, design, and energy sectors, ranging from system‑level questions (such as the integration of AI tools into contract management processes) to project‑specific matters, including expert‑level review of individual agreements. He can be reached at billy.nelson@epicbrokers.com. Notes 1. https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/5-fabricated-cases-lead-federaljudge-to-kick-3-butler-snow-lawyers-off-case 2. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-court-rules-against-s-koreangaming-company-its-ai-hatched-takeover-plan-2026-03-16/ • Telecom and Electrical • ISO 9001 Facility • ETL Listings to UL651A • 1/2" - 6" Sizes • Custom Options • Made in Wisconsin • Fully BABA Compliant Contact Us 500 Industrial Court Baraboo, WI 608-355-3080 www.teel.com Conduit Built to Protect. Designed to Last.
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PCCA Journal | 2nd Quarter 2026 21 The Power and Communication Contractors Association headed to Hollywood, Fla., in March for the 81st Annual Convention. The popular event brought together more than 440 attendees from across the country for a week of education, advocacy, and industry connections. To kick off the educational portion of the convention, PCCA members attended the fifth annual Excavation Safety Summit led by DPAC Chair and PCCA Past Chair Jerrod Henschel. He was joined by CGA President & CEO, Sarah K. Magruder Lyle; John Fluharty, PCCA Past Chair and CGA Chair; PCCA 2nd Vice Chair and CGA Excavator Board member Chase Lapcinski; PCCA Past Chair and CGA Engineering/ Design Board member Steve Sellenriek; NULCA Executive Director Ron Peterson; USIC Vice President of Government Affairs Nancy Mitchell; DPAC Government Affairs Committee Co-Chair Ben Brubeck; and IPC 811 Emergency Study author, Mark Bridgers, of Continuum Capital. Together, the group discussed topics ranging from recent CGA DIRT Report findings to Infrastructure Protection Coalition initiatives. Throughout this session, the panelists revisited a common theme: reporting damage will be key to preventing it in the future. “We need everybody in this room reporting that you’re having issues, so that we actually have the data to go back and be able to fight the right fight,” Lapcinski said. “Without the data, the problem doesn’t exist. We don’t have a late locate problem, we have a silent late locate problem.” Just outside the session, the registration desk was busy all day checking in attendees as they trickled in from around the country. Despite snow, tornadoes, and more than a few flight delays, attendees still made their way to Hollywood, proving that not even the elements can derail this industry’s calendar. The convention was later formally opened by PCCA Chairman Rob Pribyl, who reflected on the association’s longevity: “For 81 years, PCCA has been a unified voice for power and communication contractors, focusing on safety, workforce development, industry advocacy, and strong partnerships that keep America connected and powered. That longevity is a testament to you, our dedicated members, who continually invest in strengthening our industry.” Addressing Workforce Dynamics That forward-looking perspective carried into the keynote presentation by Mark Breslin, whose session, “People First: The Next Evolution of Construction for Culture, Performance, and Profit,” addressed workforce dynamics and organizational culture. He emphasized the importance of clearly defined company values in attracting and retaining the next generation of workers: “They want to know what you stand for. They want to know what you’re all about.” On Sunday, attendees gathered for the 54th Annual Prayer Breakfast, one of PCCA’s most beloved and unique traditions. Guest speaker and high school principal Todd Henderson shared a moving personal story about adopting two girls from Haiti, who would later inspire him to found Seeds for Sustainability, a nonprofit supporting Haitians by providing agricultural education and resources. And, like many conventions before, the group closed out the morning with the classic “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul)” by Matt Continued on page 22 PCCA Shines During 2026 Convention By Caroline Ferguson
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