Infrastructure: Finding the Remedy to a Nationwide Need
Policy brief by — George Dyer
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Much of America’s physical infrastructure is failing, people are at risk, and the government is treating the issue too lightly. “In 2021, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the U.S. a C-minus for the state of infrastructure across the nation. It warned that 43 percent of U.S. roads and highways were in “poor or mediocre” condition, and that more than 46,000 of the nation’s bridges were in such lousy shape that it would take another 50 years just to complete all the currently needed repairs” (Kiger 13). Without swift action, we will reach a point of no return. We will have damaged the infrastructure beyond repair. The current approach involves failing to repair and maintain our current framework, whereas a better approach would combine the forces of both the state and the federal government to renew and rebuild our nation’s physical infrastructure. A good starting point is the infrastructure bill just signed into law by President Biden, which contains funding needed to help set a baseline for a balanced framework. The bill is not perfect, but it gets our country started on infrastructure renewal, and gives perspective on what is needed next for more stable infrastructure maintenance in the future.
AMERICA’S CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE
Right now, physical infrastructure is decaying without proper maintenance, updates or replacement all over the country. Our roads, bridges, waste systems, mass transit, water, communication systems, power supplies and public buildings are not getting the attention that they desperately need. “From coast to coast, the country’s once-envied collection of bridges, dams, pipelines, sewage treatment plants and levees is crumbling…Every year, hundreds of deaths, illnesses and injuries can be attributed to the failure of bridges, dams, roads and other decaying structures,” writes Ron Nixon for the New York Times (6). The federal Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates that “obsolete road designs and poor road conditions are a factor in about 14,000 highway deaths each year.” (Dawid 5). These deaths are just the beginning of what could be an extremely dangerous decade. Dawid and Nixon argue that we need to strengthen our country’s infrastructure to avoid more unnecessary casualties. Miami recently went through a situation where a poorly engineered bridge collapsed. “The N.T.S.B. blamed engineers for a faulty design — and the state for poor oversight — in the collapse of a new pedestrian bridge that killed six” (Mazzei 4). These were six deaths that could have been avoided with some proper infrastructure maintenance. Six families who will no longer see their loved ones just because of an issue that could have been prevented with simple planning. These are just some of the events that have been occurring in our country with more infrastructure constantly arising.
Action is required to prevent the aging infrastructure from causing unnecessary havoc in the US. More needs to be done in the near future; our already failing 50–60-year-old infrastructure is going to be on the brink of disaster. It is a process that does not happen overnight. “Properly repairing and replacing the nation’s rickety bridges and highways (plus transit systems and related infrastructure) would require about $220 billion a year between now and 2040, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)” (Patterson 3). State and federal government need to address these large-scale issues before it is too late. Responsibility falls into the hands of the government because they are the entity large enough and with the proper resources to manage this public framework, and they are also its original builders. It is our job, as the people of this country, to use our voice to guide our leaders through the right paths that will ensure our roads, bridges, dams, and other types of public entities are properly funded.
Once the government is on track to properly fund our country’s infrastructure, it should become a top priority to make sure our current framework is stable enough to handle the natural phenomenon that age these materials in the first place. When natural, catastrophic events occur, everyone is going to wish that they had spent a little more time on the upkeep of our country rather than spending our nation’s time and money on things of lesser value. “When Mother Nature strikes with a vengeance, bridges pay the price. Earthquakes, flooding and high winds can all contribute to [infrastructure] collapses” (Works 5). Even though we know that these natural events are going to occur eventually, we still procrastinate the preservation of the very systems we rely on to function as a society. Kaia Hubbard states in her article that “over the next 30 years, due to the impacts of climate change, an additional 1.2 million residential properties, 66,000 commercial properties, 63,000 miles of roads, 6,100 pieces of social infrastructure and 2,000 pieces of critical infrastructure will also have flood risk that would render them inoperable, inaccessible, or impassable” (5). With proper planning and funding, we can slow down or even stop most of these infrastructure disasters from happening, a big improvement over our existing approach. It should become a top priority that we are making sure the U.S. is properly prepared to handle climate disasters when they happen.
In response to the infrastructure issues happening due to climate change and the normal deterioration and obsolescence from aging, our government very recently passed an “Infrastructure Bill” to combat these framework issues. “In total, the deal includes $550 billion in new federal investments in America’s infrastructure over five years” (Lobosco 2). Their goal with this bill was to supply needed funding for the decaying framework in the United States. Even though it is not the most perfect bill, it contains aid to the crumbling country we live in. There are good factors involved in this new infrastructure bill such as roughly 20% of it going to the maintenance of roads and bridges, and public transportation. Although only half of this new bill is meant for U.S. infrastructure, it is very needed funding. Kevin DeGood says it best by explaining that “building infrastructure is an inherently political act of creation… Infrastructure needs are typically presented as dispassionate, objective facts. In truth, infrastructure is the physical manifestation of both political power and social values” (1). Although the proportional allocation toward infrastructure might ideally be higher, this new bill holds the funds needed to rebuild failed infrastructure.
Even though this new bill is going to help our country’s infrastructure, we the people in this country need to figure out how to avoid having to repeat the chaos that occurred in the past few years. If we do nothing to change this structural management issue, we are going to eventually end up right back where we started. Right now, the framework in the country regarding the maintenance of bridges, roads etc., is like putting ice in a room that is 33 degrees and expecting it to stay frozen. It is not an issue at this very instant, but give it time, and when that puddle begins to form below the cube, people are going to start pointing fingers and saying they were never warned. With modest preparation implemented into our government’s infrastructure maintenance, we can avoid going through this type of situation in the future.
OUR CURRENT APPROACH — INACTION — IS UNTENABLE
Until a few weeks ago when the most recent bill passed, our government has regularly been putting infrastructure repairs on the back burners with plans to revisit the issue away from the present. This strategy has gotten us by because infrastructure was newer 20 years ago. The practice of insufficient attention to maintenance was not devastating because it was cheap, easy, and required minimal work; the infrastructure was still sound. The money could be used for other types of governmental priorities and there was less to worry about. However, by not having infrastructure maintenance on our yearly spending list, our framework has had enough time to rot away. Democrats recently gathered and passed the new “Infrastructure Bill” that is going to help fix these issues. But going forward, there needs to be a structural change in procedure to prevent this issue from occurring in the future. Initially, accurate reserve studies need to be completed to assess our infrastructure situation. More thorough than a nominal inspection that would give us a rough idea of our current situation, there needs to be a proper analysis of the repair, maintenance and upgrade needs of our structural assets and systems, combined with a plan on how to repair and resolve these issues. We cannot afford to have these issues procrastinated until catastrophic events happen due to failed maintenance.
In addition to assessing and inspecting our infrastructure and implementing an ongoing system of maintenance and upgrade, we also should establish an independent rainy-day fund in anticipation of natural disasters that will inevitably damage our infrastructure. This would range from earthquakes and tornadoes to hurricanes and floods. What separates this from FEMA is that it would be a pre-existing, ongoing entity funded by taxpayers but privately administered. Shielded from politicians and long turn-around dragging out for unnecessarily large amounts of time, it could act quickly in response to cataclysmic incidents. With FEMA, the focus is on instant response to alleviating human needs, including getting broken infrastructure up and running, but often in band-aid fashion. More permanent infrastructure repairs are now rarely part of the conversation because it is not as urgent and politically romantic spending and there is not much excitement involved in the maintenance of infrastructure. There is then the question that comes up about how we could muster the political will to pass infrastructure amortization on an ongoing basis? This is all while trying to convince politicians that infrastructure is a critical part of our country. The challenge is to figure out how to convince our legislators to properly prioritize and establish the rainy-day fund, allowing it to combat natural disasters that affect our country’s structure.
With the combatting of infrastructure issues becoming a more essential need, Democrats just passed a fascinating infrastructure bill that is providing funding for our American infrastructure. This new bill will supposedly help to stimulate the economy and create more jobs, but it has some downsides, particularly that it provides only a small portion of the total funding we need to allocate to infrastructure in the longer term. “Lawmakers and the White House have touted the huge number of jobs this law would help generate” (Long 8). However, there are some serious downsides to it. It contains tax hikes that some scholars suggest could limit economic growth in the long run. But at a minimum, it gets us started on an infrastructure repair movement that will lead to more attention to the needs of our nation’s physical systems. But, on the other hand, it more heavily taxes the businesses that are providing jobs to our country, which could cause them to reduce hiring and decrease job opportunities. With this new bill implemented into our system, there is hope that it can potentially provide aid to the wobbly infrastructure that we all interact with on a daily basis.
Although we are now making progress with this new funding for infrastructure repairs, it is a big job and state governments also need to act. The challenge is that each state oversees their own infrastructure issues, and there is an overlap between federal and state infrastructure. It varies state by state how much is provided for infrastructure maintenance. The federal government is not responsible for a great proportion of our infrastructure. “By one measure, state and local governments and the private sector own 97 percent of the nation’s nondefense infrastructure, and they fund 94 percent of it” (Edwards 3). The federal government is currently trying to incentivize each state to prioritize infrastructure maintenance and upgrades, by providing the federal infrastructure funding in this bill. It gives states the leverage needed to properly create a new foundation for infrastructure maintenance. Even with this recent bill passed, it is important that state officials turn their attention to establishing stronger and more long-term infrastructure maintenance and upgrade planning and funding.
PERMANENTLY FUNDING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE
Building on the new bill, we next need to amortize our infrastructure and commit that spending. Housing tract and condominium homeowners’ associations across the country do this annually, doing reserve studies and then establishing and collecting dues which both maintain their shared assets on an annual basis but also save funds incrementally so that eventual replacement of physical assets is fully funded by the time they wear out and must be replaced. We need to mirror this at the city, state and federal level. There needs to be a system where we accurately figure out how much money needs to be saved annually in order to adequately fund the timely replacement of our existing infrastructure. It would need to be created and then the budgeting, funding and regular spending of money over time in this category could begin.
REESTABLISHING A BALANCED PARTNERSHIP WITHIN OUR GOVERNMENT
Although a campaign may help in raising awareness of our situation, we also need to call for stronger federal and state cooperation with states retaining primary control AND accountability. With increased partnership, we will be able to combat this issue and develop strategies for fighting back against infrastructure damage. With increasing support around this unceasing issue, our country will slowly be able to build back its infrastructure stronger than it was before. It is not going to happen overnight, but we need continued support from both political parties in order to forever combat infrastructure in the future.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Democrats reached compromises to reduce the overall price tag of the prior version of the infrastructure bill in order to get it passed and get the infrastructure improvement process under way. They were able to find common ground with a few Republicans who agreed to settle on a smaller bill. By renegotiating the price tag on this bill, Democrats were successful in pushing this bill through. This bill alone will greatly decrease infrastructure issues and start a new era of maintenance that will hopefully avoid putting America back in the situation that we are currently in. It is not a perfect bill, that much is obvious. But it contains the ingredients needed to begin an infrastructure healing process throughout our country. However, it’s just the beginning of what is needed. “There is no single funding solution that will solve all our infrastructure investment challenges,” (Scissura 3). We now need to come up with more permanent systems to monitor and stabilize our infrastructure rebuilding and maintenance for the long term.
The federal government needs to establish an oversight entity which coordinates with all 50 states, to ensure that each is accurately assessing the status of their existing infrastructure, then planning and budgeting for its ongoing maintenance and eventual upgrading or replacement. The federal entity would not fund the state and local infrastructure but would establish best practices and incentivize the states and cities to properly assess, plan and fund so that infrastructure is regularly attended to in the future, rather than the current system of ignoring deterioration until it becomes a crisis.
Further, the federal government needs to establish and fund a long term infrastructure emergency disaster response insurance program to quickly assess and reconstruct long-standing infrastructure after natural disasters. While FEMA is fully public and responds to immediate human needs, including getting systems temporarily back up and running, it is not structured to efficiently reconstruct infrastructure for the long term. The new entity I propose would be an independent rainy-day fund in anticipation of natural disasters that will inevitably damage our infrastructure. It would be a pre-existing, ongoing entity funded by taxpayers but politically independent, able to use private or public entities to quickly repair or replace infrastructure damaged by catastrophic events. The independence will enable it to act quickly to direct attention to long term solutions for event-damaged infrastructure, while FEMA focuses on meeting short term needs.
Government officials need to also have some sort of incentive to endorse this type of project, otherwise it will not be making any appearances on any voting panels. Maybe a campaign name like Rebuilding America the Right Way or The Fight Against Climate Disasters. Something that draws interest and creates excitement in support of the situation. Maybe then it will pass the threshold between boring and necessary to exciting and crucial. We no longer need politicians arguing against this bipartisan issue. The new bill is a great success for our America’s framework, but it should have been a joint effort where all parties completely support the issues that affect all Americans. Campaigns need to be created and there needs to be some excitement throughout the country about the renovation of older infrastructure and the potential construction of new and appealing groundwork through the country.
Works Cited
“5 Reasons for Bridge Collapses: Bridge Asset Management Software.” AssetWorks, 8 Oct. 2018, https://www.assetworks.com/eam-common-reasons-bridge-collapses/.
Carlo A. Scissura, Opinion Contributor. “What We Need to Do to Fix Infrastructure in the US.” TheHill, 25 Mar. 2019, https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/435562-what-we-need-to-do-to-fix-infrastructure-in-the-us?rl=1.
Dawid, Irvin. “The Deadly Costs of Failing Infrastructure.” Planetizen News, 12 Nov. 2015, https://www.planetizen.com/node/82151/deadly-costs-failing-infrastructure.
DeGood, Kevin. “Infrastructure Investment Decisions Are Political, Not Technical.” Center for American Progress, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2020/04/14/483084/infrastructure-investment-decisions-political-not-technical/.
Edwards, Chris. “Who Owns U.S. Infrastructure?” Cato.org, https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-bulletin/who-owns-us-infrastructure.
Hubbard, Kaia. Flooding Threatens 25% of U.S. Infrastructure, Study Says … https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-10-11/flooding-threatens-25-of-us-infrastructure-study-says.
Katie Lobosco and Tami Luhby, CNN. “Here’s What’s in the Latest Version of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.” ABC7 Chicago, WLS-TV, 25 Sept. 2021, https://abc7chicago.com/infrastructure-bill-2021-biden-35/11047285/.
Kiger, Patrick J. “How Bad Is America’s Infrastructure, Really?” HowStuffWorks Science, HowStuffWorks, 30 July 2021, https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/civil/americas-infrastructure-news.htm.
Long, Heather. “What’s in the $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Law.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 Nov. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/10/senate-infrastructure-bill-what-is-in-it/.
Mazzei, Patricia. “Flawed Design, Lax Oversight Led to ‘Astounding’ Miami Bridge Collapse.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/us/bridge-collapse-florida-international-university-NTSB.html.
McNichol, Elizabeth. “It’s Time for States to Invest in Infrastructure.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/its-time-for-states-to-invest-in-infrastructure.
Patterson, Jim. “The Nation’s Crumbling Infrastructure: 6 Examples in Need of Upgrades Right Away.” Kiplinger, Kiplinger, 14 Aug. 2018, https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/t008-s005-6-pieces-of-infrastructure-that-need-upgrades/index.html.
