Design-Build Legislation - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 36

two-phase selection process that is used today by the federal government, as well as many
states (Loulakis 2003).
Currently, DB is commonplace at the federal level and some agencies, including the
Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), the US Army Corps of Engineers
(USACE), the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and the Departments of State, Interior,
and Energy rely on DB to deliver the majority of their projects, including water and waste-
water projects. Many of these agencies use DB to address significant project loads in a
timely and cost-effective manner (Hines 2010).
After the development of the 2005 congressional Base Realignment and Closure
(BRAC) recommendations, USACE, for example, was under tremendous pressure to
deliver significant construction projects in a short period of time. This was expressed by
Paul M. Parsoneault, construction management team leader, Military Programs Branch,
USACE, at the 2009 annual meeting of the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA)
(Hines 2010).
There was no way possible to execute a historically large mission using the tra-
ditional [design-bid-build] delivery system. . . . We determined that in terms
of the Army, the default delivery system is design-build. . . . because we can
deliver more quickly, we can leverage the innovation of industry to provide us
with the most cost-effective solutions to our requirements.
Noting the heavy construction demands placed on his agency during the 1980s and
1990s, Pete Swift, deputy chief, Design and Construction Branch of the BOP echoed Par-
soneault's sentiments: “Design-build shortened the delivery period because it eliminated
the procurement phase between the design and construction phase.” In addition to speed,
both the BOP and the NAVFAC realized an additional benefit from DB project delivery
as being the single point of accountability and responsibility, which has resulted in nearly
full elimination of claims and litigation in these agencies (Hines 2010).
STATE DESIGN-BUILD LEGISLATION
In an effort to achieve similar outcomes on their government construction projects, states
have passed DB legislation and more state legislators have become familiar with alter-
natives to DBB. This is a direct result of the Clinger-Cohen Act. In the absence of any
mandate for uniformity in state legislation relative to DB, each state has the authority and
flexibility to pass its own DB legislation. As a result, the move toward DB project delivery
has been slower at the state level than for federal agencies, and the legislative models and
the breadth of authority vary greatly from state to state (Thomas 2010a).
When the Clinger-Cohen Act passed in 1996, only Virginia fully authorized DB and
this allowed all public agencies in Virginia to use DB. Currently, 22 states fully authorize
DB for all agencies (Figure 4-1). Fifteen states widely permit the use of DB; the remaining
state governments permit DB to be used by some agencies, some of the time. Currently, no
state completely prohibits DB project delivery (Thomas 2010a) (Figure 4-2).