NAM renews call for $1 trillion in infrastructure investment

The National Association of Manufacturers has released “Building to Win,” an initiative to revitalize the nation’s failing infrastructure.

NAM president and CEO Jay Timmons made the announcement alongside David Seaton, NAM Board Chair and chairman and CEO of Fluor Corporation, during a visit to the South Mountain Freeway project in Chandler, Ariz., for NAM’s State of Manufacturing Tour 2019.

Originally released ahead of the 2016 elections, the updated proposal serves as a blueprint to repair our roads, bridges, rails, airports, ports and waterways and revolutionize infrastructure. It represents manufacturers’ vision for the path forward, NAM says, which is to enhance the competitiveness of manufacturers and improve the lives of manufacturing workers and all Americans.

“Infrastructure investment means jobs. It means safer families, better commutes and faster shipments. Manufacturers want to see a game-changing investment in infrastructure because we know that America’s economic competitiveness depends on it,” said Seaton. “For too long, we’ve depended on the investments of the last generation. Now is the time to build for the future—to build for the next generation and to ensure America never again falls behind.”

“Every year, America is falling further behind on infrastructure. Today, infrastructure investment is only one-third of what it was in 1960, and without action on infrastructure, we will lose 5.8 million jobs by 2040. But with an injection of $1 trillion in American infrastructure over time, we will create 11 million jobs,” said Timmons. “There’s clearly bipartisan support to modernize and revitalize our infrastructure, so now we’re calling on Congress to act.”

Key recommendations from “Building to Win” include:
● Implement strong accountability measures to ensure funds go to projects offering the greatest value for businesses, families and the economy.
● Relieve highway bottlenecks and repair America’s crumbling highways and bridges.
● Create a reliable, user-based, long-term funding stream so users can have the safe, efficient highways needed.
● Accelerate the implementation of NextGen air traffic management technology and upgrade our runways and airports to world-class standards.
● Take an expedited approach to deepen ports, upgrade aging locks and enhance intermodal connections by spending the balance in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.
● Eliminate the maintenance backlog for public transit, commuter rail and passenger rail.
● Promote regulatory and fiscal policies that incentivize continued record levels of private capital reinvestment in our railroads.
● Create an independent, bipartisan transportation commission.
● Streamline regulations to reduce the cost of delayed infrastructure.
● Promote new energy infrastructure investments as a means of improving U.S. infrastructure’s resilience to climate change.
● Robustly expand public–private partnerships for drinking water and wastewater projects.
● Streamline regulatory processes across multiple agencies and levels of government to foster the use of next-generation communications infrastructure, such as cutting-edge broadband or 5G technologies.

Click here to read the full blueprint.