14.3 Federal Employment, Immigration, OSHA & Environmental Rules

14.3 Federal Employment, Immigration, OSHA & Environmental Rules

Area F item 1 is comply with federal laws and regulations. The official B&F content outline clusters immigration (Form I-9 / IRCA), OSHA, tax laws, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), and environmental laws, including the disaster-work overlay often labeled FEMA. The 2026 B&F books that carry the cluster are the Contractors Manual 2025 (Circular E 2025 inside it) and Florida Statutes Chapter 455, 2025 (bound PDF allowed) for the state overlay. EPA Section 608 is federal refrigerant law. It is not a CILB license, and a CILB license is not Section 608. Class A unlimited capacity and Class B's 25-ton / 500,000 Btu cap do not shrink any of these federal duties.

Immigration: IRCA and Form I-9

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) makes it unlawful to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, a person knowing that person is not authorized to work in the United States, and requires every employer to verify identity and employment authorization on Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. This is a Department of Homeland Security / U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services duty, not a CILB form. Every employee, including the owner's child on payroll and a one-week storm helper, gets an I-9. The employee completes Section 1 no later than the first day of employment, and only after accepting the job — do not use the I-9 to pre-screen applicants. The employer examines original List A documents (identity and work authorization, such as a U.S. passport) or List B (identity) plus List C (work authorization), and completes Section 2 within three business days of the first day of employment (or on day one if the job lasts fewer than three days). You may not specify which documents from the Lists the employee must present. Retain the I-9 three years after hire or one year after termination, whichever is later.

Florida's E-Verify mandate (F.S. 448.095) for private employers with 25 or more employees is in addition to the I-9, within three business days; it does not replace IRCA. Shops under 25 employees still complete the I-9. Section 11.1 of this guide is the hiring file. Area F tests the compliance sentence: a federal immigration inspection is not answered by "we are a small Class B shop" or "FEMA sent us after the hurricane."

FEMA / disaster work. Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster-recovery contracts, Stafford Act public-assistance work, and a Governor-declared state of emergency do not waive IRCA, OSHA, NPDES, EPA 608, or Chapter 489 licensure. Unlicensed contracting during a declared emergency is a third-degree felony under F.S. 489.127. A FEMA site badge is not a CILB certificate and is not an I-9. The crews you fly in after a storm still complete Section 1 on day one.

OSHA as an Area F duty

The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires a workplace free of recognized hazards. Construction HVAC is 29 CFR 1926. The 2026 Air Conditioning A CBT list cites OSHA 29 CFR 1926, July 1, 2025. B&F Area F asks whether the qualifier complies; Trade Area G and section 8.2 ask how you record injuries and what PPE you wear.

High-yield Area F facts: fall protection on construction generally at 6 feet (1926.501) — a 4-ton changeout on a single-story roof is still construction. Hazard Communication for construction is 1926.59 (16-section Safety Data Sheets). Multi-employer worksites are the Florida default; OSHA can look at the exposing, creating, correcting, or controlling employer. 29 CFR 1904.39: report a fatality within 8 hours; report inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye within 24 hours, even if the shop is partially exempt from 300-series logs. Section 11(c) of the OSH Act forbids retaliation for reporting a hazard. The OSHA poster goes where employees see it. Class B's tonnage cap is irrelevant to whether a ladder, a disconnect, or a refrigerant cylinder is a 1926 problem.

NPDES, environmental law, and EPA 608

The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) is the Clean Water Act permit program for discharges of pollutants to waters of the United States. Florida's Department of Environmental Protection administers the Construction Generic Permit (CGP) for construction activity that disturbs one or more acres, or disturbs less than one acre but is part of a common plan of development or sale that will ultimately disturb one acre or more, when stormwater can reach surface waters or a municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4). Operators file a Notice of Intent and implement a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP): erosion controls, inlet protection, concrete-washout, fuel and oil storage, and site-exit tracking.

An HVAC subcontractor on a 4-acre school that already has a CGP still may not wash coil-cleaner, oil, refrigerant, or equipment-pad concrete into a storm inlet. Condensate to an existing safe waste (Class A/B statutory scope) is not a license to dump wash water down a roof drain that ties to storm. Dewatering an excavated pad can be a construction discharge. Smaller residential changeouts that never disturb an acre still sit inside environmental rules: used oil, recovered refrigerant, and solvent-soaked rags are not "just trash."

EPA Section 608 of the Clean Air Act requires technician certification for persons who maintain, service, repair, or dispose of appliances containing refrigerants. EPA's four types:

Knowingly venting refrigerant is prohibited. Section 608 certification is federal. It does not authorize you to contract HVAC in Florida. A Universal 608 tech who is not certified or registered under Chapter 489, and is not working under a qualifier, is still an unlicensed contractor if he bids the changeout. A certified Class A qualifier whose techs have no 608 still cannot legally recover, recycle, or dispose of the charge. Do not invent current GWP numbers or leak-repair percentages on this exam unless the stem quotes them; know the structure: 608 is refrigerant handling, CILB is contracting. Later trade chapters treat recovery practice; Area F treats the legal identity of the credential.

Federal tax laws

Area F "tax laws" are the federal employment-tax overlay the Contractors Manual carries in Circular E (Publication 15), 2025. Withhold federal income tax from wages per the employee's Form W-4. Withhold the employee's FICA (Social Security and Medicare) and pay the employer matching FICA. File Form 941 (quarterly employment tax) and Form 940 (annual Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA)). Issue Form W-2 to employees and Form 1099-NEC to non-employees paid $600 or more, when required. Florida has no personal income tax, so there is no state W-4; Florida reemployment (unemployment) tax still exists. Deposit schedules live in the current Circular E — confirm the lookback thresholds in that book; this guide will not invent a deposit-dollar cutoff. Misclassification of installers as 1099 "subs" is a federal tax problem, a Chapter 440 problem, and a 489.129 problem when the "sub" is unlicensed. Florida sales and use tax (6% state plus county surtax; contractor as consumer on real-property HVAC under Rule 12A-1.051) is the state companion already taught in purchasing; Area F still expects you to know it is a compliance duty, not optional "if the owner asks."

Florida HVAC scenario

After a hurricane emergency order, Gulf Breeze Mechanical, a certified Class B shop, takes FEMA-funded temporary-classroom HVAC work on a 3-acre school site that already has an FDEP CGP. The qualifier hires three out-of-state techs on Monday, never completes I-9s, and tells the crew "FEMA paperwork covers it." A tech recovers R-410A from a ruined 5-ton package without EPA 608 certification and vents residual charge "because it's an emergency." Wash water from coil cleaner runs to a storm inlet the SWPPP was written to protect. Friday a helper falls from a roof hatch; nobody calls OSHA. Payroll treats the three techs as 1099s with no 941 withholding.

Every one of those moves is an Area F miss. IRCA still required Section 1 on day one and Section 2 within three business days. FEMA funding did not waive I-9, 608, NPDES, or CILB. Venting remains a Section 608 prohibition. The CGP / SWPPP bound discharges from the HVAC sub as well as the site operator. The fall is a 1926 event; a fatality would have been an 8-hour OSHA call and a hospitalization a 24-hour call. Circular E wanted W-2 wages and 941 deposits, not a stack of 1099s for people the shop controlled. Class B's 25-ton / 500,000 Btu limit still capped what they could contract; it never capped federal law.

Traps: (1) Treating EPA 608 as the HVAC contractor license. (2) Treating the CILB certificate as permission to vent. (3) Skipping I-9 because the shop has fewer than 25 employees (that line is E-Verify, not IRCA). (4) Assuming a residential changeout can never be an environmental discharge. (5) Inventing OSHA penalty dollars. (6) Inventing Circular E deposit thresholds instead of opening the 2025 Circular E. (7) Believing a disaster order pauses Chapter 489.