National Category

The Intersection of Infrastructure & Technology

November 17, 2017By. ASCE Staff

This week, ASCE participated in a series of panels highlighting the increasing interconnectivity of technology and infrastructure. The Hill’s Digitalizing Infrastructure “Digitalizing Infrastructure” examined how new technology is transforming investments in everything from energy to transportation infrastructure. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation discussed the......

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Tags: digital infrastructure, sensors, Smart Cities

Congressman Larson Introduces the “America Wins Act”

November 14, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Earlier this month, Congressman John Larson (D-CT) introduced H.R.4209, the America Wins Act – a bill which would invest $1 trillion, through taxing harmful pollution, in our infrastructure over a decade. Under this legislation, $400 billion will be invested  in existing federal highway programs and eliminate the $138 billion Highway Trust Fund (HTF) shortfall; $100......

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Tags: aviation, congress, dams, economics, gas tax, highway trust fund, infrastructure, infrastructure investment, infrastructure report card, rail, roads, transit, transportation, water infrastructure

Infrastructure Wins on Election Night 2017

November 08, 2017By. ASCE Staff

On November 7, voters across the country approved infrastructure investment ballot measures. In Maine, a resounding 72% of residents across the state voted yes on Question 3, allowing the issuance of $105 million in bonds for transportation projects around the state. $80 million will be provided to state highways and bridges, $20 million for multimodal......

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Kelly Barnes Dam Failure: Dam Safety Then and Now

November 06, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Kelly Barnes Dam failure: an event that acted as a catalyst for improvement in dam safety. On November 6, 1977, Toccoa Falls Bible College was nearly swept away as high water erupted through the defects in the Kelly Barnes Dam, sending 25-foot waves through the campus. This tragedy......

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Tags: Dam Safety, Dam Safety Program, dams, National Inventory of Dams

Bipartisan Legislation Introduced in the House and Senate to Enhance Infrastructure Investment

October 24, 2017By. ASCE Staff

The Move America Act, bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate introduced (H.R. 3912 and S. 1229) to enhance America’s infrastructure by strengthening public-private partnerships. ASCE supports the legislation and has been working to advance it in both the House and Senate.  The House bill was introduced this October by Congresswoman Jackie......

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Outdated Gas Tax Rate Still Propping Up America’s Transportation Infrastructure

October 23, 2017By. ASCE Staff

This month marks the 24th anniversary of the federal gas tax’s outdated 18.4-cent rate enacted on October 1st, 1993.  First established in 1932, the gas tax goes toward the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) – the federal fund that pays for bridges, roads, and transit. The federal gas tax rate has been raised numerous times since......

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Tags: congress, gas tax, highway trust fund

The Importance of Resiliency

September 27, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Within the past month, major hurricanes hit Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico, two earthquakes only days apart, led to the loss of over 100 lives and the destruction of massive amounts of infrastructure in Mexico, and hundreds of thousands of acres of land have burned in the Pacific Northwest from wildfires. These events coincided with......

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Tags: earthquakes, hurricanes, NIST, resilience

Texas Report Card Gives Infrastructure a “C-“

September 20, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Texas’ infrastructure has received a lot of attention in the past few weeks following Hurricane Harvey. Today, weeks the cities of Port Aransas and Rockport were destroyed and Houston and South Texas flooded, the Texas section of the ASCE released the Report Card for Texas’ Infrastructure, and the report finds there is work to be......

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Tags: Hurricane Harvey, texas

ASCE Supports Legislation to Reduce Deferred Maintenance Backlog at National Parks

September 14, 2017By. ASCE Staff

ASCE’s 2017 Infrastructure Report Card gave our nation’s public parks a grade of “D+.” Despite the growing popularity of public parks and lands, chronic underfunding of our parks infrastructure continues to plague the system. The National Park Service’s (NPS) 2016 centennial anniversary generated a new wave of excitement for our nation’s public parks. In fact,......

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Tags: deferred maintenance, National Parks, public parks

President Trump Release Executive Order on Infrastructure

August 16, 2017By. ASCE Staff

On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order (EO) on infrastructure permitting, titled Presidential Executive Order on Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure. The EO aims to reduce permitting time, which in the past took an average of seven years, and will now be condensed into an average......

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Tags: floodplain, permitting, PresidentialExecutiveOrder