Could an infrastructure bill really happen?

The political stars may be aligned, enabling Congress to push through much-needed legislation addressing infrastructure development in the U.S.

Whenever I’m traveling on the U.S. Interstate System and cross a bridge of significant height, I think about the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse that occurred in Minneapolis on Aug. 1, 2007. To this day, I’m amazed something like that happened in the U.S.

But if you pay attention to the news, you know that the U.S. hasn’t been making the type of investments needed to keep everyone safe. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the U.S. a D+ in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card. (I’m not sure it makes me feel any better, but the U.S. received a C+ in the category of bridges.) If you are stuck in traffic for more than 30 minutes per day, get claustrophobic in major airports, or even refuse to drink water out of the tap out of fear of contamination, you know the dismal infrastructure grade is one that has been earned, not given.

Past presidents have talked a big game about making necessary infrastructure investments, the last one being Barack Obama who signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 to get “shovel-ready” projects going, but in reality only set aside a small percentage of the $800 billion for concrete and structural steel projects. So the news that President Donald Trump was proposing a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan in February 2018 was pretty exciting. (However, it included only $200 billion in federal funding over 10 years, funded by unspecified cuts elsewhere in the federal budget, and it died in the Republican-controlled Congress.) Trump definitely has been a friend to the manufacturing community with his tax cuts and assault on what he sees as burdensome regulations, so it’s easy to believe that Trump would want something like this to happen.

Now he has some company when it comes to support infrastructure spending. With the Democrats taking over the House of Representatives after the mid-term elections, some Washington, D.C., observers believe some sort of deal might be possible. Some early discussions of possible plans coming from the House range anywhere from $500 billion to $1 trillion. With ASCE suggesting that $4.59 trillion is needed to make up for decades of neglect, that’s a good start.

Democrats, of course, will ask for firm funding, perhaps paid for with the first increase in the federal gas tax in 25 years. The federal gas tax has been 18.4 cents, 24.4 cents for diesel, since it was last raised in 1993.

“If you raise the gas tax 10 cents a gallon, you get billions of dollars. That's a very, very good start,” Ray LaHood, a former member of the Obama administration and currently co-chairman of the Building America’s Future coalition, which pushes for a new era in infrastructure investment, told CNBC in early November. “It sends a message to the states that the federal government is serious about getting back into being a good partner.”

That’s a lot of structural steel and plate work to keep heavy-duty fabricating shops busy for several years. It’s good for manufacturers. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for keeping U.S. citizens safe. It’s simply good policy.

The White House and Congress need to get this done.