During his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump proposed spending $1 trillion on infrastructure over 10 years by relying primarily on private investors. He repeated this pledge in his February 28 speech before a joint session of Congress, stating: “Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and railways, gleaming across our very, very beautiful land.”
One issue that needs to be resolved is how to define infrastructure. President Trump campaigned on a broad definition that also included energy, schools, and hospitals. Senator Susan Collins (ME-R), Chair of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee, said that her panel will hold a hearing on infrastructure that will include not only roads and bridges, but airports, seaports, and broadband.
Another question is how to pay for such projects. Senator Deb Fischer (NE-R), Chair of the Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security, has introduced S. 271, the Build USA Infrastructure Act. The bill is sector-specific, breaking the infrastructure problem down into various components.
“I think it would be very difficult to have one big, huge, comprehensive infrastructure bill dealing with roads and bridges, ports, airports, broadband, pipelines, all of these items,” Senator Fischer said. “We would end up with better policy if we would take each section of our infrastructure needs and address them with specific pay-fors.”
Representative Peter DeFazio (OR-D), the Ranking Minority Member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has proposed raising new revenue by indexing to inflation the 18.4 cent-per-gallon Federal gasoline tax, which hasn’t been increased since 1993, and using that additional revenue to leverage bond investment for infrastructure.
Senator John Hoeven (ND-R) may reintroduce a bill he sponsored in the last Congress with Senator Ron Wyden (OR-D) called the Move America Act. That measure would expand tax-exempt private activity bonds and create a new infrastructure tax credit with the goal of giving States flexibility to pursue infrastructure projects. Such an approach would be more in line with the President’s support for public-private partnerships to spur private-sector investment.
Senator Mark Warner (VA-D) may revive his proposal to create an infrastructure bank that would provide direct loans and loan guarantees to facilitate infrastructure projects. President Obama repeatedly proposed something similar but was unable to get his funding request through Congress.
Meanwhile, a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers found that more than $2 trillion will be needed over the next 10 years to shore up the Nation’s infrastructure, and gave current conditions an average grade of D+.
For more on this topic, see the September 2012 issue of Congressional Digest on “Transportation Infrastructure.”
