Our Failing Infrastructure

On Tuesday a bipartisan group of seven Senate Committee Chairs and Ranking Members, including Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK), sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), urging leadership to file cloture and move forward on a 6 – month extension of the surface transportation bill in order to spur job creation and economic recovery. This request is a change from the Senate’s previous assertion for an 18 – month extension, which fell in line with the Obama Administration’s current policy stance. Senator Boxer hopes pulling back from an 18 - month extension will ease the tensions that are arising between House and Senate leaders on how to proceed with the future bill.

To follow up on the letter to Leadership, the EPW Committee held a briefing Wednesday afternoon to discuss the ongoing issues related to the surface transportation reauthorization. High ranking Department of Transportation staff including, John Porcari, Deputy Secretary of Transportation and Roy Kienitz, Under Secretary for Policy, testified before the Committee and answered questions relating to a possible six month surface transportation extension in the Senate. Both testified that the Department of Transportation does still back an 18 – month extension, however it was also stated that the Highway Trust Fund is only on track to remain solvent until August 2010. Meaning another infusion will be necessary if a new surface transportation bill, with revised funding mechanisms, is not established. To that point Senator Voinovich (R-OH) made an eloquent argument for the need for Congress to make the difficult decision to raise the nation’s gas tax.

Senators also stressed the need to stray away from a continued set of one month extensions in order to provide a bit more funding stability and assurance for state departments of transportation throughout the country. Since SAFETEA-LU expired on September 30, states have had a 30% cut in their highway funding, which is leading to states like Nevada and Illinois to halt many future projects. The Senate hopes that the passage of a six month extension will provide these departments of transportation some more certainty and afford Congress a six month window to work toward a new six year bill. Finally, Senators from both sides of the aisle requested that the Administration come out with an aggressive proposal for a new multi year surface transportation authorization that includes forward thinking mechanisms for funding and sustainable development.  

If you have some free time during your lunch hour today, check out this free webcast of National Journal’s Transportation Policy Briefing at 11:30 AM EST on Tuesday, November 17. The event will feature a keynote address from Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and a panel of other transportation experts.

Watch the live webcast or archive here.

The news this morning wasn’t good: unemployment in October climbed to a twenty-five year high of 10.2 percent and is expected to grow. More troubling for those of us in the infrastructure field, last month the economy also lost about 62,000 construction jobs. While the Obama administration estimates on recovery.gov that as of October 30, 640,329 jobs have either been created or saved by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, clearly more must be done to stem the tide of continuing job losses.

You know another thing that’s still not getting any better? Yep, that’s right, you guessed it- the nation’s failing infrastructure! It’s been almost 10 months since ASCE graded the nation’s infrastructure at a D and estimated that it would cost $2.2 trillion over five years to bring it up to a good condition – and so far not much has changed.

So bad news all around, right? Well, if you don’t want to be too depressed on a Friday afternoon, why not take this opportunity to help put some of this right. We need engineers and anyone who cares about infrastructure to contact their legislators in support of these crucial issues that will improve infrastructure and put people to work:

1.                  Surface Transportation System Authorization – the nation’s transportation system has been operating on short-term extensions since SAFETEA-LU expired in September. This lack of action on new policy is keeping states from making long-term transportation plans or hiring new workers. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) this week called waiting on an authorization “wrong-headed” when so many people are out of work. Click here to send a message to your legislators instantly.

2.                  Clean Water Trust Fund – the nation’s water infrastructure system faces hundreds of billions of dollars worth of repairs, and yet no sustainable federal revenue source exists to pay for those needs. The Trust Fund would collect money from polluters and those who use water systems for product disposal and distribute it in a consistent manner to states for repair and rehabilitation of essential drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities.  The Fund would raise an estimated $11 billion per year through 2015. Click here to send a message to your legislators instantly.

3.                  Dam Rehabilitation and Repair Act – across the country, thousands of dams are aging. Most of these dams were built prior to development down stream, and now, should they fail, could cause major loss of life and property. The Dam Rehab bill would create a grant program to help states repair and modernize threatened dams. Click here to send a message to your legislators instantly.

The speedier travel time, more reliable water systems, and protection from unsafe dams should be reason enough to support any of these above issues. But think about the job someone would get designing, building, or maintaining any of this infrastructure and these pieces of legislation take on even more importance. So ask your elected officials for support today and let people in your community know how important a safe and efficient infrastructure is to our economy.