Senator Bernie Sanders introduced new legislation on Tuesday the 27th of January, 2015 to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure.
It’s a five-year plan that would require $1 trillion worth of investment in the hopes of creating 13 million paid jobs. The legislation is co-sponsored by Senator Barbara Mikulski and is supported by the American Society of Civil Engineers, amongst many others.
eNews Park Forest (Illinois) reports:
“For too many years, we’ve underfunded our nation’s physical infrastructure. We have to change that and that’s what the Rebuild America Act is all about. We must modernize our infrastructure and create millions of new jobs that will put people back to work and help the economy,” Senator Sanders said.
“My legislation puts 13 million people to work repairing the backlog of infrastructure projects all across this country. These projects require equipment, supplies, and services, and the hard-earned salaries from these jobs will be spent in countless restaurants, shops, and other local businesses. It’s no surprise that groups across the political spectrum – from organized labor to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – agree that investing in infrastructure will pay dividends for future generations.”
Senator Sanders’ bill makes targeted investments in roads, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, water infrastructure, marine ports and inland waterways, national parks, municipal broadband and the electric grid. A short summary of the bill can be found here and the text of the bill itself is here.”
Newspapers and websites across America have been eagerly reporting this new Bill and public opinion seems positive, but the real question is, will this Bill live up to its hype?
Can it be done, and if it can, how should it be implemented?
Inframanage.com notes that clearly the political discussion on funding US infrastructure is underway.
The question for municipalities, utility networks, infrastructure custodians, and infrastructure owning authorities is – when this funding comes on stream, how will you be able to effectively demonstrate your long-term needs and requirements.
As Inframanage.com has noted many times – the answer to this question is having infrastructure asset management practices in place, and having completed long term infrastructure asset management plans.
Whilst it is expected that the political funding debate and appropriations may take some time to complete, in preparation for this funding now would be a good time to commence your infrastructure asset management planning.
PHOTO AND CAPTION CREDIT: Ron Cogswell via Flickr Creative Commons License
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