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Transforming Construction Contracts with Generative AI: Opportunities and Challenges By Dan Broderick, CEO of BlackBoiler In recent years, generative AI technology has made a significant leap forward with the release of OpenAI’s GPT-4, which has impressed the world with its ability to generate realistic and creative text, images, audio, and synthetic data. This technology exhibits…

The Eight Who Voted Against Speaker McCarthy Per last Thursday’s Bloomberg News Article, “the eight Republican House members that voted against Speaker McCarthy hail from mostly Sun Belt districts with a distinct demographic profile, areas with exceptionally low unemployment, lots of newcomers, high numbers of homeowners and newer homes.  Circumstances in those areas make their…

Vaccine Cards Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said they will no longer distribute COVID-19 vaccination cards. Instead, the CDC recommends individuals contact the state health department’s immunization information system (IIS) to record new vaccinations.  Per their website, “your state’s IIS cannot issue you a vaccination card, but they can provide…

This Week in Congress Despite passing short-term funding legislation this past weekend to keep the federal government funded until mid-November, this week both chambers continued working on a series of appropriations bills to fund the government throughout FY24.  Each chamber must adopt 12 bills, either separately or in a package, to fully fund the government…

Federal Government Funded Until November 17, 2023 Under H.R. 5860, the federal government will be funded through November 17th, which also provided $16 billion in emergency disaster aid.  This continuing resolution (CR) will generally extend fiscal 2023 funding levels for federal agencies and programs that otherwise would have shut down on October 1st.   The measure…

The House Ousts Speaker McCarthy For now, Rep. McCarthy (R-CA) is no longer Speaker of the House.  A small group of House Republicans, led by Rep. Gaetz (R-FL) joined with Democrats to oust him.  Tuesday marks the first time the House has ever voted to remove a sitting Speaker, a historic development that will catapult…

New California Senator California Democrat Laphonza Butler was sworn in on Tuesday as the newest senator, replacing Sen. Feinstein. Butler will become the first Black woman in the Senate since fellow California Democrat Kamala Harris left the chamber in 2021 to become vice president. Butler will also be the first openly LGBTQ California senator. Butler’s…

Aid to Ukraine The CR did not contain any additional funds for Ukraine. Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader McConnell said they expect more funding to be included before the end of this year, but Speaker McCarthy said that any funding for Ukraine must come with additional security measures for the U.S. southern border.…

Updated Products and Upcoming Webinar from ConsensusDocs At the end of last month, ConsensusDocs released updates to their most used prime and subcontract agreements. These agreements include the following documents: ConsensusDocs 200 — Standard Agreement and General Conditions Between Owner and Constructor (Lump Sum) ConsensusDocs 205 — Standard Agreement and General Conditions Between Owner and Constructor (Short…

This Week in Congress This week, Congress worked to avoid a government shutdown prior to September 30th.   As of late Tuesday evening, the Senate voted by a large margin to start the process of moving a short-term continuing resolution (CR).  The bipartisan Senate bill funds the federal government through November 17th.   Last Saturday afternoon, the…