Infrastructure Week! Now With More Flood-proofing, Electrification And GOP Congressional Whining

[hatrack]

As infrastructure talks progress on Capitol Hill, Democrats are calling for any legislative package to address climate change. That would have been unthinkable last year, when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. Indeed, when President Trump initially proposed his $1 trillion infrastructure plan last year, it sparked little discussion about global warming. And the plan ultimately failed to materialize due to disagreement over funding options.

But momentum is again building for an infrastructure package to materialize by late spring. And now that they have a majority in the House, Democrats are increasingly vocalizing the need for it to address the climate crisis (E&E Daily, March 7). "The benefits of highway infrastructure investment will be impeded — if not downright nullified — if we don't address the threats of climate change and extreme weather events that are increasingly disrupting our nation's transportation system," Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said last week at a hearing on highway infrastructure investment.

EDIT

At a T&I hearing last month, Vice Chairman Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) stressed in his opening statement that the purpose of the hearing was not to debate the Green New Deal but rather to examine how federal infrastructure policy could help mitigate and adapt to climate change. "I suspect many on both sides of the aisle will want to spar over the Green New Deal," Carbajal said. "But it is not what we are here to do today. If you want to debate underlying arguments or ideas of the Green New Deal, this is not the venue."

Ranking member Sam Graves (R-Mo.) paid no heed to these instructions. "We don't have to live in a fairy tale, and that's where ideas like the Green New Deal come from," Graves said. "There's no other way to describe this idea to completely make over our transportation network." Still, Democrats say GOP distaste for the Green New Deal and other climate provisions shouldn't hamper meaningful progress on the issue.

https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060126741

[watoos]

1. Republicans should have done infrastructure,

when they controlled everything.

The Republican infrastructure plan is to rebuild a bridge using 90% taxpayer dollars and 10% developer dollars. When the project is finished the developer owns the bridge, he can make it a toll bridge and keep the money. Down the road if the bridge needs repair work done the developer is under no obligation to perform it, repairs go back to the taxpayer.

This in one example of the Republican's infrastructure plan.