Infrastructure bills like the “BUILD America 250 Act” typically build two things. One is physical: roads, bridges, ports, rail corridors, freight networks. The other is legal infrastructure that determines how safely, quickly, and affordably people and goods can move. For the latter, the act relies on the old political playbook — new layers of regulation without full regard for the old — and puts some of its goals at risk.

Having served as a senior economist at the Federal Railroad Administration, I do not view building infrastructure and improving efficiency and safety as competing goals. Far from it. But lawmakers must change the way they think.