white house infrastructure proposal puts focus on state and local funding

Calling for a greater use of public and private partnerships, along with stepped-up state and local spending, the White House has released President Trump’s long-awaited $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan.

The 55-page proposal specifically calls for a greater investment in infrastructure projects in rural areas, as well as a streamlining of the government agency permitting process that could see projects approved in two years or less.

The document, Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America, provides a framework of administrative priorities that it hopes Congress will act on later this year.

The proposal also calls for the establishment of an incentives program that would be used to support “wide-ranging classes of assets.”

Of those assets, the document lists surface transportation, airports, passenger rail, ports and waterways, and both drinking water facilities as well as wastewater facilities.

The incentives program will be funded at the $100 billion level, to be divided up between the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the federal Department of Transportation.

Some $50 billion would target a rural infrastructure program, while $20 billion will go for what is being called “transformative programs” which would be centered on new projects rather than rehabilitating older and existing infrastructure.

As proposed, the plan is designed to provide parameters for members of Congress to act upon. But analysts say that the odds are small that all of the President’s ideas, during a year seeing mid-term elections, will see passage.

By Garry Boulard