Infrastructure repairs have bipartisan support, lack funding
WASHINGTON — The grades for major U.S. infrastructure would give any parent indigestion if they were on a child’s report card.
Roads: D; bridges: C+; dams: D; ports: C+: railways: B; airports: D; schools: D+; public transit: D-.
The nation’s overall grade: D+, which translates to being “in fair to poor condition and mostly below standards” with “significant deterioration” and a “strong risk of failure,” according to an evaluation last year by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
And it won’t be cheap to fix all that crumbling infrastructure and build badly needed new projects. The estimated cost is as much as $4.6 trillion through 2025 — and depends on Republicans and Democrats in Washington acing a subject they have been failing: bipartisanship.
But the results of the November elections — particularly California voters refusing to repeal an increase in the state’s gas tax to pay for road and bridge repairs — are spurring optimism that a major infrastructure initiative is possible if party leaders can overcome key differences in how it would be structured.
The need to rebuild the nation’s highways, dams and other infrastructure is one of the only areas of agreement among President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans and Democrats, who will take control of the House next year. Projects range from filling dangerous potholes on Interstate 5 in California to the proposed $30 billion Gateway project to upgrade bridge and tunnel connections between New York City and New Jersey.
Leading business groups have made a significant boost in infrastructure spending a top priority, and the projects could provide a lift to the U.S. economy as the stimulus effect of the recent Republican tax cuts starts to fade. That all has experts pointing to infrastructure as the most likely major legislative accomplishment for both parties before the next elections in 2020.
“The conventional wisdom is there’s a lot of reason to work together. Both sides want an infrastructure program,” said Henry Cisneros of Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., a firm that manages financing for largescale infrastructure projects.
“But whether it will happen will depend almost exclusively on whether the political climate is contentious preparing for 2020 or both sides see the benefit in getting it done,” said Cisneros, who served as Housing and Urban Development secretary from 1993-97.
The day after the November election, Trump said he and Democrats “have a lot of things in common on infrastructure” and cited it as one of the issues the two parties could work on next year.
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., the likely new chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said a White House official visited him in September to discuss infrastructure investment, apparently with an eye toward a Democratic takeover of the House.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that we can actually get something done,” DeFazio said.
But there are major hurdles to a deal.
Democrats have called for $1 trillion in new federal spending over 10 years. Trump has proposed trying to leverage $200 billion in federal money in partnership with the private sector to produce $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure over the same period.
On top of the huge discrepancy in the amount of federal funding is a debate over how to raise the money. That question has become more pressing since the federal budget deficit soared this year after the big corporate and individual tax cuts took effect.
Trump’s plan, unveiled in January, called for the federal spending to be offset by unspecified budget cuts. Democrats want to raise the federal gas tax, which has not been increased since 1993. Business groups also support a modest hike in the gas tax. Most Republicans and conservative groups have opposed any increase in the 18.4-cent-a-gallon tax.
But Trump told DeFazio and other Democrats in a meeting in February he was open to a 25-cent increase, phased in over five years. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has proposed such an increase, noting the tax, designed to fund highway and mass transit spending, hasn’t kept up with inflation over the last 25 years.
“A lot of the Congress wants infrastructure, but now we have to figure out a way to pay for it,” said Ed Mortimer, the business group’s vice president of transportation and infrastructure. “From a business community standpoint, we’re willing to stand by these elected officials to get this done.”
There’s little debate that much of the nation’s infrastructure — a broad category that includes public parks, high-speed internet access, pipes for delivering drinking water and facilities holding hazardous waste — is badly in need of significant upgrades.
The aging drawbridges carrying Interstate 5 over the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington are stretched beyond capacity and don’t meet seismic standards, but a multibillion-dollar plan to replace them has stalled for years. The nation’s out-of-date air traffic control system is in the midst of a $36 billion overhaul to replace ground-based radar with satellite tracking, but funding to complete it is in question.
And Amtrak’s Portal Bridge in New Jersey often malfunctions and needs workers to bang the rails back into place with sledgehammers. It is part of the Gateway project that is seeking federal funding. One New Jersey commuter even set up a GoFundMe campaign recently to draw attention to the problem.
Last year, California officials drew up a wish list of $100 billion in state projects for possible additional federal funding. They included the replacement Gerald Desmond Bridge under construction in Long Beach, an expansion of the Los Angeles-toSan Francisco bullet train project to include service to San Jose and an earthquake early warning system.
“I think there is a need to both renew — by that I mean repair deterioration and bring things up to good operating condition — and there’s a need to modernize,” said Martin Wachs, a retired professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.