April 2, 2021
Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP
President, Chen Moore and Associates
Last week: As the “infrastructure guy” in the SF100, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan unveiled by the president this week. The problem with the figure is that, of that money, half is allocated toward elderly/disabled programs and research, development and job training. While I certainly find value in the latter, they are not capital investments in infrastructure. This result in the program only achieving about 40% of what the ASCE Report Card on America’s Infrastructure unveiled just a couple weeks ago. It’s a start, but I worry that it will be too little too late.
Looking ahead: Sticking with the topic of infrastructure, but this time putting the emphasis on the political will to make the necessary investments. In less than 20 years, not properly funding infrastructure will cost America $10 trillion, over 3 million jobs and nearly $3.4 trillion in exports. It’s a frustrating world as an engineer when we know how to fix these problems, and we hear our politicians saying they want to give the general public the best, but they are unwilling to make those tough choices. It’s not a matter of if, but when, we need to act.
