Infrastructure Recommendations

As conveyed in our Infrastructure Research, responsibility for the development of US infrastructure is borne by a complicated partnership of federal, state, and local government as well as private industry. Regaining our competitiveness, therefore, requires increased effort and investment from each of these constituencies, but no other partner can play the role of the federal government in leading the effort. While there is no single answer to how this effort should be initiated, led, or funded, the federal government must take the lead in defining the mission. We think the creation of a cabinet-level Secretary of Infrastructure to coordinate the related activities currently found in the Departments of Energy, Commence, Interior, and Housing and Urban Development would be a helpful start. Although additional federal funding is necessary, execution of investments should be through states, localities, and public-private partnerships whenever possible. The role of the federal government is to set strategy, coordinate responses, evaluate progress, and directly fund the areas of national versus local interest.  

Across the federal government, there are several areas that merit more spending, but most of them require significant reform in order for the increased spending to be effective. It is not clear that this is the case in the area of infrastructure spending. Governments, private companies, and the many regulated utilities that comprise our infrastructure generally know what improvements are necessary; they simply lack the funding necessary to keep up.  

Having said that, as we discussed in the Infrastructure Research, maintenance spending has tended to squeeze out spending on major new capital projects. While necessary, such maintenance does not prepare us adequately for a changing economy. Therefore, federal government leadership will be important in striking a balance between maintaining aging infrastructure and preparing for the future. 

With this in mind, we find that the general priorities should include preparing the nation’s infrastructure for climate change and enhancing the cybersecurity of all our critical systems. This would entail a significant investment in several areas: 

• modernization and decentralization of the grid to enable the further development of renewable energy sources 

• development of renewable energy and battery technologies 

• fortification of our shores and surface transportation against increasingly volatile climate conditions 

• development of light rail and high-speed transportation 

• a standardized autonomous vehicle system 

• improvements in water and sewage systems