Orphan Road

Great op-ed in WaPo today about why America's infrastructure is falling to bits. Apropos of our transportation discussion on B&P yesterday, thought I'd post some of it here.

Thomas Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, writes:

You'd be hard-pressed to convince the American people that we don't need to spend more on infrastructure after the tragic collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis in August. Signs of decay are everywhere, from crumbling bridges to pothole-ridden streets to exploding manhole covers and underground steam pipes.

Yet Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is making precisely that argument. She has said that we could meet all of our transportation infrastructure needs if we spent current funds more wisely. She is only half right. Spending money wisely is important, but it's not nearly enough.

There are three things we must do to ensure that our nation has a superior physical platform capable of serving a growing economy: stop diverting dedicated transportation funds to wasteful or unrelated projects; unleash private infrastructure investment by removing regulatory impediments; and invest more federal, state and local dollars in infrastructure.

He continues:

What must our nation do to meet the urgent infrastructure funding challenges? Where is the money going to come from?

We can start by unlocking potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment just waiting to be spent on power plants; pipelines; shipping and hauling routes to railroads and airports; privately constructed and operated roadways; and more. The money is there if government regulators would get out of the way. Countries around the world use an array of innovative financing approaches and public-private partnerships to bring key projects on line quickly. It's about time America did the same.

There must also be a significant increase in government funding for infrastructure, which means we will have to consider an increase in the federal gasoline user fee. This could mean a straightforward increase in a fee that hasn't been raised in 14 years, or it may be in the form of a carbon fee designed to address global warming. Either would work as long as the proceeds are dedicated to transportation and other infrastructure.

What will we get for these investments? We will save lives, create American jobs and set the foundation for a more robust, productive, globally competitive economy.

Now, I don't want to get too partisan (check out B&P for that), but I do find it extraordinary that the leader of one of America's venerable business organizations goes out of his way to propose a increase to the gas tax as the only way to get enough funding to rebuild our infrastructure. Put another way, our infrastructure is in such bad shape that business leaders are calling for tax increases in order to raise the funds to fix it.

America may be great, but our infrastructure is no longer extraordinary. Good to see the business community -- if not yet the median voter -- starting to recognize that.