President Unveils Infrastructure Plan

On Friday, March 29, President Obama highlighted his proposals to create jobs through investing in infrastructure.   The plan – which will be laid out further in the president’s budget – is a combination of proposals laid out in the State of the Union and a new plan to attract private infrastructure investment. The first part of the plan once again calls for a $50 billion front-loaded transportation infrastructure investment, with $40 billion directed towards reducing the backlog on deferred maintenance on highways, bridges, transit systems, and airports.  Similar to his State of the Union address, the president refers to this as his “Fix-it-First” Policy and does not offer any solid suggestion as to how to pay for such a plan.  The second part of the plan is the creation of a “Rebuild America Partnership” intended to enhance the role of private capital in U.S. infrastructure.  This new partnership includes many policies supported by AGC, including eliminating the volume cap on Private Activity Bonds (PABs) for water infrastructure and increasing the national limitation for highway PABs.  The president proposes to create a new and permanent program known as America Fast Forward bonds modeled after Build America Bonds.  In addition, the administration proposes that the third part of the plan would continue to allow the administration to pick individual projects to cut the federal review and permitting process, as opposed to moving forward in implementing the streamlining provisions in the transportation authorization bill, MAP-21. AGC commends the president for recognizing the need for increased investment in our nation’s infrastructure. However, the president’s plan is silent on addressing the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund and how to restore the approximately $4 billion in cuts to federal construction programs as a result of sequestration. AGC looks forward to working in a bipartisan manner to tackle the funding problems facing our nation’s critical infrastructure. For more information, please contact Sean O’Neill at (202) 547-8892 or oneills@agc.org.