Trumps chance to lower costs, spark jobs and Make NY Buildable Again

President Donald Trump is a builder, and his plan to redevelop New York’s dilapidated Penn Station will leave a great mark on the city.Unfortunately, the price tag is estimated at $6 billion to $7 billion, which is a lot.Yet he can significantly curb the figure by leading the fight to waive a 141-year-old New York law that needlessly inflates costs.A recent study by the Building Trades Employers Association, a group of unionized city contractors, found that Penn Station costs could be trimmed by as much as $560 million if the feds waived that archaic law, known as the Scaffold Law, at least on federally funded projects.Notably, the law has nothing to do with scaffolding; it simply creates a legal standard that holds property owners and contractors strictly liable for any injuries sustained on a construction site — even if the worker is 99% responsible for his injuries.The other 49 states all use a legal standard known as comparative negligence, which assesses fault based actions of the parties.The result? Insurance costs are as much as 500% higher in New York than in other states.Across the nation, insurance generally consumes 2% to 4% of construction value; in New York the comparable figure is 8% to 10%.That cost difference is yet another reason why New York has made itself too expensive to build anything.It also means construction costs are inflated by 6% to 10% solely because of the Scaffold Law.This impacts every building project in the state.A few years ago, the general counsel to the NYS School Construction Authority estimated that if the Scaffold Law were repealed, the city could build two or three entirely new schools every year.And while builders must have insurance to operate, many insurers have fled the state because of this law, reducing competition and raising costs even higher.All this is largely hidden from public view, so nothing happens.Repeated efforts to reform the system over 40 years have failed in Albany.Now Rep.

Nick Langworthy (R-NY) has...