Ever since President Joe Biden unveiled his $2.25 trillion infrastructure framework, Washington and the media have been consumed with the prospects of a big infrastructure bill reaching the Oval Office. Optimism in politics is important, but the public shouldn’t hold its breath that the Biden plan will become law anytime soon. After all, we’ve been down this road many times before: Lawmakers broadly seem to agree on doing something on infrastructure, only to hit a roadblock when ironing out those pesky details.
Broadly speaking, Republicans and Democrats agree that the federal government, in conjunction with the states and private stakeholders, needs to do more to revamp our nation’s ailing infrastructure assets. In addition to raising important public safety concerns, outdated infrastructure hampers the ability of businesses to remain competitive in a globalized world. Meanwhile, workers and the self-employed lose the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars in time and productivity, whether through traffic congestion or severely damaged roadways. A modernized infrastructure and transportation system will ensure that people and businesses maximize their growth potential.
Unfortunately, few would consider the Biden proposal to be a traditional “infrastructure” plan. Instead, it reads more like a wish list of radical items. For example, the plan only spends a small fraction of the total cost on roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports. Instead, the vast majority of the spending is for noninfrastructure items: $174 billion for electric vehicles, $400 billion for healthcare, $80 billion for Amtrak, and billions more for subsidies from the Green New Deal. It’s disingenuous and unserious for this to be labeled an “infrastructure” package.
Aside from the laundry list of wasteful spending, one of the biggest drawbacks of the proposal is a failure to reform the bureaucratic delays that plague how infrastructure gets built. Too many projects get tangled in regulatory red tape that needlessly increases the price of a project and delays the hiring of workers.
The best way to revitalize the United States’s infrastructure and modernize the transportation system isn’t just spending taxpayer dollars for the sake of “infrastructure” but instead streamlining the process to make building more efficient and less expensive without sacrificing safety.
In the absence of reform proposed by Biden, House Republicans realize the biggest impediment to bringing infrastructure and jobs online isn’t funding but government inefficiencies. Recently, House Republicans reintroduced the BUILDER Act, a comprehensive bill that would finally address many of the delays that impede the construction of roads and bridges. This timely bill would codify many of the important pro-growth reforms implemented by the Trump administration through modernization of the outdated National Environmental Policy Act. At its core, the BUILDER Act makes infrastructure project reviews more efficient and cost-effective, two things that will spur economic recovery and create jobs.
Reforming NEPA is a key piece to making infrastructure jobs shovel-ready. NEPA is a half-century-old statute designed to ensure that infrastructure and energy projects consider environmental factors prior to development. Before issuing a permit, federal agencies must consider the aesthetic, historical, cultural, economic, and social effects of proposed actions. These vague standards leave projects in bureaucratic purgatory, exposed to lawsuits and on the sidelines.
Environmental protection is an important goal, but the requirements set forth by NEPA are no longer tenable. In fact, the average time to complete a NEPA study increased from 2.2 years in the 1970s to 4.4 years in the 1980s to 6.6 years in 2011. Every delay increases project costs and postpones the benefits of modern, safer infrastructure, with little evidence of an environmental benefit.
If passed, the BUILDER Act would arguably be the most comprehensive NEPA reform legislation ever signed into law. The bill codifies clear timelines for environmental approvals, clarifies environmental impact statements and environmental assessment requirements for smaller projects, and improves public engagement. The BUILDER Act is a jobs bill, infrastructure bill, and good government reform bill all in one. Most importantly, it does all that without adding a penny to our already high national debt.
The Biden infrastructure plan is woefully inadequate to addressing the nation’s infrastructure needs because it refuses to take on the reality that outdated regulations prevent the U.S. from building anything in a timely and taxpayer-friendly manner. The BUILDER Act, on the other hand, is a major step forward for infrastructure projects and for taxpayers.
Thomas Aiello is the director of federal affairs with the National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for taxpayers at all levels of government.
