On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, analysis and speculation about what President Biden is likely to include in his much-anticipated proposal to address the nation’s inadequate and crumbling infrastructure.
Lloyd Brown, director of communications for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), returns to the podcast to talk about what he’s hearing.
Will “Infrastructure Week” move from punchline to serious discussion with results? The Biden administration signaled an intention to roll out tangible ideas, indicating with Monday’s announcement to expand offshore wind turbines that infrastructure means more than roads and bridges.
We know U.S. Department of Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg has been working a lot of rooms, speaking with Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike. That plays to his strength as a collegial broker and strong communicator. And as a policy wonk, there is no doubt he’s quickly getting up to speed on the issues. Is this too much pressure?
In an interview with CNBC, Sec. Pete talked about why infrastructure offers a solid return on investment.
Other links and references from this week’s show:
Forbes on what we know now about the president’s plan.
Roll Call on a discussion about restoring earmarks.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription) on the president’s push for offshore wind projects.
On this week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast, analysis and speculation about what President Biden is likely to include in his much-anticipated proposal to address the nation’s inadequate and crumbling infrastructure.
Lloyd Brown, director of communications for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), returns to the podcast to talk about what he’s hearing.
Will “Infrastructure Week” move from punchline to serious discussion with results? The Biden administration signaled an intention to roll out tangible ideas, indicating with Monday’s announcement to expand offshore wind turbines that infrastructure means more than roads and bridges.
We know U.S. Department of Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg has been working a lot of rooms, speaking with Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike. That plays to his strength as a collegial broker and strong communicator. And as a policy wonk, there is no doubt he’s quickly getting up to speed on the issues. Is this too much pressure?
In an interview with CNBC, Sec. Pete talked about why infrastructure offers a solid return on investment.
Other links and references from this week’s show:
Forbes on what we know now about the president’s plan.
Roll Call on a discussion about restoring earmarks.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription) on the president’s push for offshore wind projects.
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Jeff Cranson: Hello, this is the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson, director of communications at the Michigan Department of Transportation.
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Cranson: This week I’m going to be talking about President Biden’s long anticipated infrastructure package. We're supposed to hear more about that as the week progresses. Some things are already rolling out there, and I’m pleased to have with me a repeat guest to the podcast, Lloyd Brown, who's director of communications for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. And I want to hear what he's hearing in terms of speculation and what we might expect. Thank you again, Lloyd, for taking time to talk.
Lloyd Brown: Thanks for having me.
Cranson: So, let's set some background first. We've talked about infrastructure week becoming a punch line during the previous administration, even a source of jokes for people not working on transportation issues. Why is there speculation the jokes are over, and do you think something's really going to happen?
Brown: Well, a couple of things we've seen so far in the Biden administration is really focused on their discipline. They've been a very disciplined administration to this point, laser focused on the COVID relief package and getting that through, and then all indications were infrastructure was next. When we watched over the last couple of years—or I'm sorry a couple of weeks, when there were a couple of mass shootings and the call for action on gun control and increased background checks came up, President Biden, last week, said there's a time for that and then pivoted to infrastructure. So, it seems to me, looking at the combination of the discipline and his public statements, that infrastructure is next. It looks to be that infrastructure is what's next, and the action so far this week, even this early on a Monday, seemed to be pointing in that direction.
Cranson: We know that transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been working a lot of rooms using his considerable charms, and, you know, relationship building skills to speak with Democrats and Republicans. We're hearing a lot about those conversations. Obviously, the Biden administration has a lot riding on his ability to bring people along, and it plays to his strengths because he's a collegial broker and strong communicator. He's a policy walk, which helps too because he gets up to speed on these complex issues pretty quickly. Do you think this is putting too much on him?
Brown: I do not think it's putting too much on him because it's not just Secretary Pete, as he likes to be called, you know, the takeoff of the Mayor Pete, but he also is soon to have Polly Totenberg, who was the director of the New York City Department of Transportation. She was with the USDOT during the Obama administration. She's nationally well respected and highly considered on both sides of the aisle policy leader. So, I think that really what they've done is they've put a really top-notch team in and around Secretary Pete at the USDOT. The new Federal Highway Administration Acting Administrator Stephanie Pollack was most recently the secretary of transportation at the Michigan—I’m sorry, Massachusetts Department of Transportation. So, there's a lot of people with some significant administrative experience and leadership in transportation that are filling up the department. So, no, I don't think it's all on him. I also think that the expansive nature of the way that this administration is viewing infrastructure means that while Secretary Pete is certainly carrying a lot of the load for what we would consider more traditional transportation investments, that there's going to be a lot of effort to advocate for and push other forms of infrastructure investment as well.
Cranson: Infrastructure is one of those words that people kind of hear what they want to hear, and for your members, and, you know, not that you don't do policy work, and advocacy in the transit, and in rail worlds, you know, the vast majority of your members are consumed with surface transportation and what it means to roads and bridges. Some people hear infrastructure and think it means broadband. Some people think it means you know the electric grid. Certainly, what President Biden announced on Monday with more offshore wind turbines that all counts as infrastructure. Where do you think Secretary Pete is on that? Is he as interested in roads and bridges as you might like him to be?
Brown: Well, I think that he signaled that roads and bridges are an important part of the scenario. I think that if you're looking at any kind of bipartisan agreement on transportation that you're going to have to bring along people who not only support highways and bridges, but also people who are looking at rail, people are looking at public transportation. So, this is really a multimodal view of transportation. I’m not surprised that there are lots of discussions about even going beyond the infrastructure investments to things like why we invest, how we invest in certain areas. So, it becomes more of a conversation, or an addition to a conversation, about diversity and equity and inclusion, and some of those other issues that have really captured our attention as a nation over the last year.
Cranson: Even as we speak, recording this on Monday afternoon, the Secretary is on with Jake Tapper on CNN right now talking about this and their scroll concerns, even some pushback from Democrats about doing too much. Some people would say that given the way we've under-invested for so long in our nation's literal foundation that you can't do too much. What are what are you hearing around town about that?
Brown: We know that the number to eliminate the backlog has been estimated at well over $1.1 trillion, just for the interstate system. That's roughly $57 billion every year for the next 20 years that would be needed to just invest in the national interstate highway system to bring it back into a state of good repair. Anybody who's driven cross-country, as I did recently over the last few months, can tell you that there are really large sections of the interstate that that need some attention and need that kind of investment. If you go with the larger, you know, highway and bridge investment that goes beyond the interstate, you know, over 10 years, you're looking at $756 billion according to the USDOT's most recent conditions and performance report. The numbers are quite large. I’m not sure that if you're looking at the needs that you can spend too much. The economic experts might argue that there's a limit to how much you want to invest at any one time, but, certainly, the needs would say that that you need to be investing at a pretty significant level.
Cranson: It seems to me that, you know, like in Michigan, for instance, those numbers you just quoted for us the estimate is $1.5 to $2 billion dollars a year just for state routes to get them back to, you know, 90% condition. If you could think about this in terms of how you invest now, you know, a lot of states have something like an education trust plan where you can start buying your child's tuition when they're very young and guarantee that they can go to college, you know, 18 years after they're born at the current tuition rates. So, you're locking in those things way ahead of time. In Michigan, it's called the Michigan Education Trust, and I know other states have something similar. If you can do something like that with infrastructure where you say, ‘look, we're going to invest now. We don't have to roll it out all at once, but we're going to try to lock in some of these things with some certainty as to the costs.’ The contracting community is willing maybe to take that risk because they've got economies of scale, and they can figure out ways to make the money go further. If you look at it that way that you just need—and I know everybody says they want certainty, and, you know, sorry, you just can't have it in all things, but this is an area where that could really make a difference and give the contracting world, you know, that confidence that the money's going to be there.
Brown: Well, I think what you're seeing here this year from the surface transportation perspective is that we have two things that are moving at the same time. One is this current discussion about infrastructure and injecting money into the economy to pay for infrastructure, but we also have, coming up later this year, the need to reauthorize the surface transportation bill that is the annual authorization to spend out of the Highway Trust Fund for the ongoing maintenance, and repair, and operations of the National Highway System, and public transportation, and rail. So, you know, there's some that hope that in these discussions as you're going along with, you know, talking about infrastructure here this week that there will also be some sort of acknowledgement that we're going to be right back here in just a matter of months with the reauthorization of the surface transportation, so we might as well roll it into the current legislation. I think that it was chairman DeFazio, Peter DeFazio of the Highway—I’m sorry the House Transportation Infrastructure Committee, and he's suggesting that the bill that he wrote last year that got out of committee could be the foundation, or is the foundation, for what's going to be the Moving Forward Act that is going to be the foundation, starting point for the legislation that the Biden administration is going to put out later this week, so we'll see how that those two things work together.
Cranson: Well, and you probably saw some comments from Mitch Daniels who as governor of Indiana overlapped, at least for a short time, with Secretary Pete’s time as Mayor Pete in South Bend. Daniels talks about the need to reduce regulatory roadblocks that he says, you know, that often stall major construction projects. He made it sound so easy, but regulatory roadblocks to some are just protections for animals, plants, and drinking water to others. What are you hearing about that and whether there's any room for compromise on, you know, what they call ‘regulatory roadblocks?’
Brown: I think that's a really good point. AASHTO has long been an advocate for streamlining project delivery, but we also understand the need to be preserving and caring for the natural environment and the animals and the wildlife that live in that natural environment. You'll see that in a lot of states the most significant investor in environmental programs is the department of transportation in that state because of the types of programs that are intended, you know, basically make up for some of the disruptions that are caused by transportation projects. So, you know, we support streamlining. I’m not sure that there's a lot of streamlining that is still in front, but there's always opportunities to look at processes and procedures and see if there's ways of doing it smarter and doing it better. As long as we stay focused on that, I think that that's where most folks are interested, and just making sure that, you know, if we're investing this money in transportation that we're able to get the money out the door and get it out into the economy and getting it doing the work it was intended to do as quickly as possible.
Cranson: And there's also talk about bringing back earmarks. In fact, the House GOP Conference voted earlier this month to do that, but then they also talked about some transparency rules. I’ve read that some lobbyists say that that'll water things down too much to really allow earmarks to be reinstated. What are you hearing on that front?
Brown: People have said for a long time that when the earmarks were taken away by the Republican congress back in, I think, 2008 or 2010, but well over a decade ago that the ability to get—to pay for and gain large support for transportation bills sort of evaporated. The reality is that the earmarks were not the panacea, and I’m not sure that they are in this scenario either. I do think that being able to go home to a district and say to your constituents that there were there was movement in favor of a particular project or program that is popular in that district will help somebody get reelected. That's just political common sense, but I’m not sure that that's going to be the thing that is going to put this infrastructure investment program over the top either way.
Cranson: So, it's really another word like ‘roadblocks,’ right? That sounds innocuous enough. ‘Earmarks,’ like of course you would go through, and, you know, earmark certain things for specific uses, but to other people that just sounds like pork. It's not a good thing, so—
Brown: Well, and it sounds as if, from my understanding, that there are some guardrails to coin a transportation phrase on the on their agreement with the earmarks that would make it more transparent. From our perspective, the departments of transportation, we'd like to engage with the members of congress to make sure that as they're identifying projects they're within the state investment program, that there's funding to go along with the federal funding so that federal dollars don't get hung up and sort of held hostage and aren't able to move forward because there's not a state match. So, there's some other criteria that that we advocate as well to go along with the earmarks, but that's all process. Really, the intent behind it is to is to try and increase interest and support for investing in transportation we support that wholeheartedly.
Cranson: Well, the President during his campaign, you know, talked about investments that would create five million new jobs. I know those job figures always get banned about when it comes to transportation, whether you're talking about direct or indirect jobs. You're talking about actually supporting existing jobs. He actually said creating new jobs, but I guess, you know, I hate to be the skeptic here, but whenever I hear and read that this is at least something that there's bipartisan support for I think that that's really misframing the issue because of course there's bipartisan support for having good roads and bridges, but I’ve never seen any bipartisan support for how to pay for them. What's your gut tell you about this and where the conversation goes and whether something truly big can happen?
Brown: Well, that's the bottom-line question for sure is what’s the number and what's the pay for, and it could be a combination of any number of things to be negotiated out. What we're seeing is that the Democrats are not in 100% unity. That this spending, you know, in the trillions of dollars for infrastructure on a broad infrastructure sort of writ large is what we need to be doing right now because of what it potentially could do to the economy and with inflation and different things of that nature. So, if you talk just about investment in bridges, and roads, and electrical systems, and water systems, and some of these hard infrastructure systems I think you do get a lot of support from the public, you also get a lot of support from congress, but then, you know, sitting down and paying for it. It's the same if you're a homeowner and you're faced with the reality that your roof needs to be repaired. You can see it, you look at it, there's a leak coming through in the kitchen, but somebody's got to write that check and that hurts every time. So, you know, how you're going to come up with the money to write that check is the biggest question, and I’m not sure that we've got a complete answer. I think that's going to be where a lot of the conversation goes in the next couple of weeks.
Cranson: So, that's an analogy, metaphor, that you hear a lot comparing it to your home and your roof, and I guess I always wonder how it is that people think, ‘well, of course I’m going to do what I have to do because I have to preserve my home.’ Why don't we, the collective we, feel like, you know, roads and bridges are ours? How are we able to compartmentalize that in our minds that, you know, well, that's not my problem? And I know that’s a psychological question.
Brown: Well, it is, and I remember, I don't know it's been probably eight years ago now, I was in Wyoming for a meeting and I heard the governor of Wyoming talking to a group of transportation leaders. He said the most conservative principled thing to do is to invest in our infrastructure system, to maintain it and make sure that we're keeping it in a state of good repair. His point was that, you know, it makes sound fiscal sense that you've invested significant amounts of money. Let's maintain this resource at its highest and best use so that it can last for as long as possible and that's a conservative principle, but it's also common sense. It's something that goes far beyond, you know, political party. The way that he phrased it has always stuck with me that this is the right way to do it to make sure that you're maintaining the system and keeping it in a good working order, so it'll last as long as it possibly can.
Cranson: And that's why, you know, chambers of commerce all over the country and organizations like them that traditionally are the, you know, advocates for business and the business world agree with that. That's why they feel that way, so, you know, he's not alone in believing that. Thanks, as always, for your time. It will be really interesting to watch how this plays out and to see if, you know, a few months from now we're talking about some success with a major plan.
Brown: Well, Jeff, it's actually really nice to be in a real Infrastructure Week for a change and to see what that feels like and not really have it be the butt of a joke.
Cranson: Yeah, I agree, and people should also know that you're speaking to me with your Washington Nationals gear on. Even though you're a lifelong Dodgers fan, you've kind of adopted a second team since you live in D.C., and I certainly don't blame you for that.
Brown: They're a fun team. I’m looking forward to the start of the season. This is the best time of year. We've got two things, we got infrastructure week and the start of major league baseball, so—
Cranson: There you go. All right, thanks, Lloyd.
Brown: Take care, Jeff.
Cranson: Thank you again for listening to this week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I would like to thank Randy Debler and Corey Petee for engineering this week's podcast. To subscribe to show notes and more, go to Apple podcasts and search for Talking Michigan Transportation.