This week, the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure held a hearing entitled “The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why Investing in Our Nation’s Infrastructure Cannot Wait.”
The hearing hosted several witnesses to provide their perspectives on the current state of highways, bridges, transit systems, ports, airports, as well as the backlog of maintenance and repair needs to the transportation infrastructure in the US.
In opening the hearing, Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) noted that “our infrastructure investment needs are massive: according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), we have an investment gap of $2 trillion over 10 years to fix what we have, meet future needs, and restore our global competitiveness. The investment gap in surface transportation alone is over $1 trillion.”
Witness after witness highlighted the need for the federal government to fund repairs to existing infrastructure and to invest in new construction to build new projects to reduce congestion and increase the ability of commerce to move across the nation.
As noted in the January 10, 2019 Week In Review, the need to invest in our transportation infrastructure is one of the few issues that Democrats, Republicans, and President Trump agree upon. However, differences exist in the approach to fund that investment as well as which priorities to fund. Further, the cost of funding infrastructure is massive.
SAF has long-supported transportation infrastructure investment to ensure that floral products can quickly and efficiently move across the country or across town.
