Public works and infrastructure investments are crucial for the U.S. economy

As President Trump and the 115th Congress begin tackling the significant challenges our nation faces, the American Public Works Association encourages them to focus on rebuilding, improving, and protecting America’s infrastructure.

Our members design, build, operate, and maintain the infrastructure and services fostering commerce, protecting public health, and providing the high quality of life we expect as Americans.  The public works spectrum includes roads, drinking water, flood control, emergency preparedness and response, waste disposal, snow removal, and parks. Our nation has experienced tremendous improvements to our quality of life in the last one-hundred years because of our investment in these areas.

{mosads}Unfortunately, that commitment to investment has declined; leading to more potholes and congestion on roads, levees no longer able to provide adequate protection, insufficient safeguards for communications systems and technology, and situations where drinking water is not safe to consume. These problems are not insurmountable, however.

It is not too late to overcome these challenges, but each year we delay funding aging infrastructure, the cost increases. These increases are not only due to the actual price tag to pay for the infrastructure, but the ripple effect this has on U.S. agriculture and commerce being unable to dependably and quickly move crops and products to market. While state and local governments carry much of this burden, Congress can and must take concrete steps to ensure our infrastructure can meet the needs of a 21st-century economy.

Our members know that keeping America competitive in global markets requires considerable resources and investments from both the public and private sectors to maintain and protect our infrastructure. As the Trump administration and Congress work toward the advent of new infrastructure policies, we encourage you to reach out and contact APWA public works professionals for their expertise on all infrastructure matters dealing with federal, state, and local public policy and positions on infrastructure legislation.

Our transportation infrastructure system requires dependable, long-term, and sustainable funding to improve efficiency of the system, reducing traffic congestion in our cities as well as modernizing regulation, and safety. Emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles, automatic emergency braking, and vehicle- to-vehicle communications require reliable infrastructure like reflective pavement markings and signs in order to function safely and efficiently.

Further, safe and dependable drinking water systems are imperative for public health and thus economic growth. We have one of the safest water systems in the world with 286 million Americans getting drinking water from a community water system. But a significant amount of that infrastructure is at the end of its expected lifespan. The consequences of it failing are immense, as we saw in Flint, Mich., where the children of that city will now face a lifetime of health challenges.

Those responsible in preparing for, responding to and rebuilding after a natural or manmade disaster must be provided with the best support, training, and tools available. This includes interoperable communications capabilities, protection of technology from nefarious actors, and defense of our critical infrastructure systems against cyberterrorism.

At a time when all levels of government are operating in a fiscally tight environment, the federal government can do much to help communities help themselves. Some of the biggest expenses for any infrastructure project are compliance with numerous environmental laws at multiple levels of enforcement creating an immense and duplicitous amount of paperwork and studies raising project costs considerably. Our members are stewards of the environment and sustainability is a key principal for APWA, but there must be a practical and reasonable balance.

We have made tremendous improvements to our environment in recent decades, but Congress needs to modernize these laws. By passing legislation allowing for integrated planning of our water resources, making the environmental review process more efficient, and reducing abusive lawsuits, Congress and the Trump administration can build upon past progress made in protecting our environment, critical infrastructure, and supporting those responsible for these foundational needs.

As caretakers of our nation’s infrastructure, we take pride in the significant improvements that our mothers and fathers made before passing it to us. We face the choice of leaving the next generation a system better than what we inherited, or one that is worse. Our children and grandchildren deserve better than the status quo. The public works community stands ready as an essential resource and partner to President Trump, the administration, and Congress in addressing and meeting the vital public works and infrastructure needs so fundamental to our country.

Ron Calkins is President of the American Public Works Association and Public Works Director (Retired) of Ventura, Calif.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.