Trump’s plan to rebuild roads may be a dead end

for lawmakers who will write the legislation.

With the plan heavily dependent on state and local dollars, Democrats warned it would raise tolls on commuters, sell off governmentowned infrastructure to Wall Street and eliminate critical environmental protections.

The proposal lists Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Dulles International Airport as examples of assets that could be sold. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., warned that the proposal included studying whether the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility, should sell its transmission assets. He called it “a looney idea” with “zero chance of becoming law.” but said it would be up to state and local leaders to ensure that local permits don’t hold up worthy projects.

“Washington will no longer be a roadblock to progress. Washington will now be your partner,” Trump said.

During the meeting, the former real estate developer revelled in his past life as a builder, pointing to his 1980s completion of a troubled renovation of Wollman Rink in New York City’s Central Park.

When a local official from Pennsylvania noted plans to add connections for an interstate highway — estimated to cost more than $500 million — Trump was blunt. “Get the price down a little bit,” he said to laughter.

“To me this is a very, very sexy subject,” Trump said. “The media doesn’t find it sexy. I find it sexy because I was always a builder, I always knew how to build on time, on budget.”

The proposal features two key components: an injection of funding for new investments and to speed up repairs of crumbling roads and airports, as well as a streamlined permitting process that would reduce the wait time to get projects under way. Officials said the $200 billion in federal support would come from cuts to existing programs.

Half the money would go to grants for transportation, water, flood control, cleanup at some of the country’s most polluted sites and other projects.

States, local governments and other project sponsors could use the grants to cover no more than 20 per cent of the costs. Transit agencies generally count on the federal government for half the cost of major construction projects, and federal dollars can make up as much as 80 per cent of some highway projects.

About $50 billion would go toward rural projects — transportation, broadband, water, waste, power, flood management and ports.

The remaining federal dollars include: $20 billion for expanded loan programs and private bonds, $20 billion for “transformative projects” that seen as visionary and $10 billion for a capital financing fund and office-building by the federal government. BEIRUT • Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi — the leader of ISIL — is still alive, but injury and poor health have forced him to relinquish control of the terror group, according to an Iraqi -intelligence chief and U.S. officials.

Baghdadi is hiding out in the desert on the Syrian side of the Syria-Iraq border, northeast of Deir Ezzor province, said Abu Ali al-Basri, director general of Iraq’s intelligence and counter-terrorism office at the interior ministry.

“We have irrefutable information and documents from sources within the terrorist organization that al-Baghdadi is still alive and hiding,” Basri told government newspaper As-Sabah.

The official said the ISIL chief had suffered “fractures and serious wounds” which were likely the result of previous air strikes on the organization’s strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Baghdadi, who also suffers from diabetes, is thought to have been left unable to walk unassisted from injuries incurred from a raid in 2015, which were exacerbated by another last May.

Basri described his condition as “severe”, saying he added that the jihadist had recently been admitted to a hospital in the Jazeera desert near the border for his “deteriorating psychological Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has not been seen in public since declaring ISIL’s caliphate from Mosul, Iraq, in July 2014.