Infrastructure: Overview

Introduction

Several incidents in the early twenty-first century brought attention to the aging, neglected infrastructure of the United States. The 2005 collapse of a 50-foot, 125-ton concrete beam onto I-70 near Washington, Pennsylvania, and the 2007 collapse of the I-35 bridge that spanned the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, are just two examples of the structural inadequacies of US highways and bridges and the threats they represent to public safety. Rolling blackouts (controlled power outages) and a major power outage that affected much of the Midwest and the East Coast of the United States in 2003 demonstrated the inability of power plants to keep up with the increasing demand for electricity. One of the most catastrophic failures in recent memory occurred in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina caused the levees protecting New Orleans, Louisiana, to break and flood the city, killing hundreds of people and causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage. Public schools, railroads, wastewater systems, prisons, waterways, airports, and national and state parks have also suffered from neglect.

The debate over US infrastructure focuses primarily on how best to raise the amount of money required to bring bridges, highways, power plants, and other structures and facilities up to date—an estimated $4.59 trillion between 2016 and 2025, according to a 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report. Much of the infrastructure is government owned or regulated and is supported with federal, state, and local funds. The Federal Highway Trust Fund is supported by the federal gas tax, for example, which is not indexed to inflation and has not been raised since 1993.

Many lawmakers have supported privatization of the infrastructure. Those who oppose privatization believe that the financial windfalls that accompany the sale or lease of public facilities are only temporary solutions. Both sides have expressed concern about the lack of American companies winning bids for infrastructure contracts.

Understanding the Discussion

Infrastructure: The skeleton or framework of a nation’s facilities and services that provide transportation, communication, energy, and water systems, as well as prisons, schools, and parks.

Privatization: The shifting of responsibility for government services or facilities from the public to the private, or business, sector.

Rolling Blackouts: Deliberate power outages, typically implemented in order to conserve energy.

United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE): A government agency consisting of military and civilian personnel who perform engineering services on a national scale. They assist in the design and construction of military and government facilities, as well as management of public-works projects.

History

The first toll road in the United States was constructed in Pennsylvania between 1792 and 1794 by the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Co. Many states followed suit and erected toll roads with public-private partnerships. Canals and railroads, also privately owned, provided for more expedient travel and contributed to the country’s westward expansion.

The 1916 Federal Aid to Roads Act provided the first federal funds for states to build or upgrade roads. Many new roads were built during the 1920s, as the country rebounded from World War I. During the early twentieth century, other infrastructure facilities owned by private business came under the control of the government, including power plants, bridges, and sewage systems.

As the population increased and placed more demands on roadways, the government began to plan for a new interstate system. World War II and the Korean War diverted attention and funding for the highways until President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, which established the Highway Trust Fund and authorized $25 billion to pay for interstate construction, maintenance, and upgrades during the following decade. By 1960, more than 41 million workers were driving or carpooling to work. The number of vehicles on the road continued to increase dramatically over the next few decades, challenging states to find the funding necessary to keep up with road improvements. Raising gas taxes or implementing tolls were often the only options.

In 1992, with a $290 billion federal budget deficit and a depleted Highway Trust Fund, President George H. W. Bush issued Executive Order 12803, which opened up ownership of highways and other infrastructure to private businesses. Several European countries had already contracted out toll-road operations. California was the first state to sell several highway projects, which went to American construction firms.

The move to privatize airports also began in Europe, which inspired President Ronald Reagan to lease the National Airport (now Reagan National Airport) and Washington Dulles International Airport to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, an independent entity, for fifty years. Since then, most large cities have been struggling to keep up with the demands being placed on airports by larger aircraft and substantial increases in air travel. In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, which allocated $9.9 billion for airport improvements; Congress reauthorized the legislation in 2003, but the allocations fell short of the $39.5 billion that the Federal Aviation Administration’s National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems estimated was necessary to upgrade terminals and runways to meet contemporary standards.

Most public transportation systems were developed during the early to mid-twentieth century. By 1960, 7.8 million workers, or 12 percent of the commuting population, rode buses or subways to work. However, the number of riders taking advantage of public transit began to decrease as the popularity of driving to work increased. By 2000, the number of commuters who drove or carpooled to work had tripled, while the number of commuters who used public transportation had declined to just over 6 million. Local governments found it difficult to justify expenditures for improvements to public transportation systems, which began to suffer from neglect. Also in 2000, the deregulation of California energy markets allowed private companies such as Enron Corporation to acquire power plants from state utilities. Enron was later accused of manipulating energy prices by causing rolling blackouts, which forced energy officials to purchase energy from private companies at high prices.

Major failures in infrastructure continued to occur in the early twenty-first century. In 2006, the Ka Loko Dam on the island of Kauai in Hawaii failed after a lengthy period of rain, resulting in a flood that killed several people, while in Maryland, more than two thousand Rockville residents had to be evacuated when a dam retaining Lake Needwood began to leak, threatening to flood property downstream. In January 2008, a weakened levee holding back a canal near Reno, Nevada, breached after a heavy storm hit the area, damaging property and causing widespread evacuations. Similarly, in February 2017, the spillway of the nation's tallest dam, the Oroville Dam, cracked during preparations for a winter storm, and an emergency chute, when put into use, eroded a nearby hillside. About 180,000 California residents were evacuated, debris clogged the river below the dam, and farms were flooded. This incident prompted the state to reinspect another ninety-three dams.

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) maintains only about 10 percent of the nation’s levees, representing approximately 2,500 levee systems totaling 14,100 miles; as of 2011, the USACE deemed only 8 percent of those levees to be in acceptable condition. Of the rest, 69 percent were in minimally acceptable condition, and 22 percent were rated as unacceptable. In addition, the ASCE reported in 2017 that about 15,500 dams nationwide were designated “high hazard,” meaning that any failure is expected to cause loss of life, while more than 11,800 others were deemed a "significant hazard," meaning that any failure is expected to cause major economic loss. Meanwhile, the National Dam Safety Program, which provided federal grants for states to improve their overburdened dam-inspection programs, expired in 2011 and was not renewed.

In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that $298 billion over the next twenty years, or close to $15 billion per year, would be necessary to upgrade and replace aging wastewater management systems, yet between 2008 and 2012, congressional appropriations for wastewater treatment averaged only $2.1 billion per year. The EPA also estimated a cost of $334.8 billion over twenty years, or $16.7 billion per year, for drinking water systems; over the same five-year period, congressional appropriations averaged $1.38 billion per year.

According to the ASCE, as of 2013, only about 54 percent of the funds necessary to keep roads in good condition were allocated each year. The Federal Highway Trust Fund that pays for interstates was expected to run out by 2009, due to increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles and a stagnant gas tax; to forestall this, Congress transferred $35 billion from the US Treasury to the trust fund between 2008 and 2010. Facing another imminent bankruptcy in 2014, Congress passed a last-minute temporary measure that would allow companies to defer contributions to employee pension funds, resulting in more taxable income and thus more tax revenue.

The ASCE also reported that in 2017, just over 9 percent of all US bridges were structurally deficient, with critical load-bearing elements in poor repair. In addition, 13.6 percent of the nation’s bridges were considered functionally obsolete, whether because they were not in compliance with current safety standards for number and width of lanes or because they did not meet current demand. Among the states with the most problems were Utah, where 3.1 percent of bridges were structurally deficient, and Arizona and Florida, with 2.6 and 2.1 percent, respectively. In Washington, DC, nine bridges were rated either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Study of the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse showed a continuous pattern of reports of deficiency for a period of seventeen years. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has estimated that an annual budget of $20.5 billion would be necessary to repair all deficient bridges by 2028—significantly more than the actual budget, which as of 2013 was just $12.8 billion per year.

In response to funding shortfalls, infrastructure continued to be privatized. In 2003, California sold another highway toll-road construction project to the private sector—this time a consortium of American and foreign companies, for $400 million, along with a thirty-five-year lease to operate the road. In 2005, the Australian firm Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) purchased the Foley Beach Express toll bridge in Alabama for $95 million and the Dulles Greenway, a fourteen-mile toll road between Washington Dulles International Airport and Leesburg, Virginia, for more than $500 million. In 2004 and 2006, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and Indiana governor Mitch Daniels leased the Chicago Skyway for ninety-nine years and the Indiana Toll Road for seventy-five years, respectively, to a coalition formed by MIG and the Spanish transportation development company Cintra. Daley considered privatizing Chicago’s Midway Airport as well, but potential sales in 2009 and 2013 both fell through.

Infrastructure Today

During his first presidential campaign in 2016, Donald Trump promised $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over a decade that he planned to fulfill through tax incentives for private investment rather than traditional private-public partnerships. As president, however, he was unable to persuade Congress to pass his proposal. In 2019, Trump and House Democrats had agreed to work on a $2 trillion infrastructure plan. The plan stalled amid Republican concerns over cost, Trump's prioritization of a North American trade deal, and his first impeachment.

After winning the 2020 presidential election, President Joe Biden proposed a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, the American Jobs Plan, which he claimed would "reimagine and rebuild a new economy" in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan included funding for repairing roads, bridges, transit stations, and airports; expanding the reach of public transit; removing lead pipes in public drinking water systems; expanding high-speed broadband service; and shifting to cleaner energy sources. The eight-year plan would be funded through an increase in corporate tax revenues over fifteen years.

Senate Republicans, however, opposed Biden's plan, especially as it called for raising corporate tax rates. In response, they proposed a much narrower infrastructure bill that focused on hard infrastructure, transit, and rural broadband. After multiple counteroffers, Biden's American Jobs Act did not ultimately become law. However, many of its key components were incorporated into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which was signed into law in November 2021. The bipartisan legislation included $110 billion for roads, bridges, and other transportation projects; $66 billion for passenger and freight rail lines; and $39 billion for public transit improvements. In addition, it allocated funds for expanding broadband internet access, improving water infrastructure, and supporting clean energy projects such as a national network of electric vehicle chargers. The legislation was set to expire in 2026, but experts noted that construction of projects funded through the IIJA would likely last far beyond that date.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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