and in the future—all through an infrastructure lens.The survey results and report highlight the need for public infrastructure owners and consultants to listen carefully to their stakeholders to make better infrastructure development decisions. Resilience and adaptability of infrastructure are vital in mitigating the impacts of climate change, population growth and redistribution and economic fluctuations. In the past few years, there have been several bills, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), that have significantly increased the federal share of infrastructure funding for the first time in decades. It is a recognition that the state of our current infrastructure needs to improve. Roads, bridges, water lines and other public infrastructure are a fundamental right, not a privilege, in a modern society. It should be noted that there has been support on both sides of the political spectrum for these bills. Not only were the votes bipartisan, but even those who may not have been supportive in the past are now seeing the positive impacts on their constituents and their communities. Today’s Congress disagrees on many policy or funding topics, but infrastructure is the exception. A recent great example is the Water Resources Development Act. WRDA is a bi-annual authorization bill that authorizes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue implementing key projects and studies that address water resource challenges nationwide. The Senate passed its bill by unanimous consent in August, and the House passed its version in July. WRDA is now off to a conference committee and will hopefully be signed into law before the current authorization expires in December. In May, the ASCE released an economic report, Bridging the Gap, which reinforced the need for continued federal infrastructure investment to save jobs and grow the economy. It finds that recent federal legislation addressing the nation’s rapidly growing infrastructure needs will save American families an average of $700 per year and save U.S. industries more than $1 trillion in gross output, including $637 billion in savings to the Gross Domestic Product if these newly established funding levels are maintained through 2033. That means lawmakers need to consider the next round of infrastructure investment since the BIL funding expires in 2026. The report shows the benefits of infrastructure investment to almost every industry. Here’s a link to the report. Take a minute and check it out. With the supplemental funding and focus on better delivery for the future, we must understand the needs for the next 50 years to deliver more durable and sustainable infrastructure. With the increase in funding and activity, we must ensure that the work is engineered to meet the current and future needs for not only the design and useful life of an asset but also for its financial life. There are many examples of infrastructure that is not meeting its financial life, where disasters are destroying assets before the general municipal bonds have matured. Or Public Private Partnerships that are renegotiated because there are serious challenges to a project’s financial viability. The solution to our infrastructure challenges is funding and financing by both the public and private sectors at all levels, so true risk-sharing partnerships are vital to unleashing private capital, as we have seen in many areas around the world. We desperately need to work together. The future is bright if we collaborate! 8 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 05, ISSUE 08
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