States submit transportation project requests to Trump

States have submitted more than 300 transportation projects to be considered by President Trump as he puts together a massive infrastructure bill.

The National Governors Association (NGA), which was asked by the transition team in early December to start collecting the requests, says a total of 43 states and territories have weighed in so far. More states are expected to send in their infrastructure requests in the coming weeks, which were first reported by Bloomberg on Monday.

“If [Trump] moves fast on infrastructure, we want to get some ideas of what are good projects that states could move quickly on,” Scott Pattison, executive director of the NGA, told The Hill. “A lot of the details still have to be worked out, but it’s a great starting point.”

{mosads}Pattison declined to name specific examples that have been submitted, but said they are a mix of projects that would require direct federal funding and projects that could use public-private partnerships.

He said the goal is to create a list of top-ranking projects that Trump could cull from so that certain projects don’t “leap frog” others that may be a higher priority in a state.

“We want to ensure we are a partner with the federal government,” Pattison said.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges and airports, but the president has not sketched out his infrastructure proposal in detail yet. Capitol Hill lawmakers acknowledge that the timing of the bill may slip past Trump’s first 100 days in office.

But there are signs that Trump is still committed to advancing a major rebuilding package this year. Trump mentioned the issue in his inauguration speech and has put together a team lead by real estate developers Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth to start identifying which projects should be targeted under any infrastructure proposal.

Pattison acknowledged that Trump’s ambitious infrastructure proposal could run into the some of the same criticisms that plagued President Obama’s “shovel-ready” transportation projects, which were tucked into the economic stimulus package.

Some critics said the projects took too long to get off the ground, while others accused the legislation of containing “pork barrel” spending for localized projects meant to solely benefit a member’s district.

But Pattison said having a list of well-thought-out projects from states, as opposed to Washington lawmakers fighting to funnel money to their districts, could help assuage some of those concerns.

“You don’t want it to be pork spending,” he said. “I think you make sure that whatever ultimate proposal becomes law, that they try to guard against that. One of the ways to do that is to be able to point out they were already [identified] by the state as a high priority for years.”