Engineering Inc. - January/February 2009 - (Page 12) President-elect Obama confers with his designated White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. existing infrastructure but also has paid little attention to building new infrastructure to accommodate a growing population and the demands of a global economy. We need a new national focus on infrastructure policy to strengthen our competitiveness, improve the safety of our infrastructure and combat global climate change. The safety and capacity deficiencies of our various infrastructure modes are well documented. Ultimately, what Joe Biden and I find to be the biggest deficit in our national infrastructure is a coordinated and sustained federal, state and local effort to safeguard and modernize all of our infrastructure modes. As president, I will enter into a new partnership with state and local civic, political and business leaders to enact a truly national infrastructure policy that recognizes that we must upgrade our infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing population, a changing economy and our short- and long-term energy challenges. During the campaign, I proposed several initiatives to help address our infrastructure challenges. As part of our emergency economic plan, we have called for the cre12 enGIneerInG InC. January / February 2009 ation of a $25 billion Jobs and Growth Fund, which will partially be used to replenish the Highway Trust Fund so that our important infrastructure projects continue to receive adequate funding. We have called for reforming the federal transportation funding process, working to eliminate wasteful and politically motivated spending, and engaging state and local leaders in efforts to reevaluate our federal transportation funding process. As president, I will require governors and local leaders in metropolitan areas to make energy conservation a required part of their planning for the expenditure of federal transportation funds—an effort that will spur more focus on investing in efficient modes of transportation and efficient projects. Finally, I also have called for the creation of a new, independent, expert-run National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to invest $60 billion in additional direct federal funding over 10 years into our transportation infrastructure. This Bank will use this $60 billion to leverage private and public capital to spur even more investments beyond today’s funding into our infrastructure. ACEC: What is your plan to address the unstable cost of gasoline and other energy challenges facing the country? OBAMA: America’s challenges in providing secure, affordable energy while addressing climate change mean that we must make much more efficient use of energy and begin to rely on new energy sources that eliminate or greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. My programs will focus on a greatly expanded program of federally funded energy research and development and on policies designed to speed the adoption of innovative energy technologies and stimulate private innovation. First, I have proposed programs that, taken together, will increase federal investment in the clean energy research, development and deployment to $150 billion over 10 years. This research will cover: n Basic research to develop alternative fuels and chemicals; n Equipment and designs that can greatly reduce energy use in residential and commercial buildings—both new and existing;
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.