Power Outage Complicates Summer Air Travel at Reagan Airport
August 17, 2018
When we plug our phones into the wall we expect them to start charging, and when we flip a light switch we expect the lights to go on. Most of the time, these systems work just fine, but this week, travelers at Washington’s Reagan National Airport sat for 90 minutes with no power, while others......
Chairman Shuster Releases Infrastructure Proposal
July 25, 2018
This week, U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) released his long-awaited infrastructure discussion draft. Key components of the plan include fixing the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), investing in transportation and water resources infrastructure, financing innovative projects, and accelerating project delivery. The plan also calls for an increase of 15 cents per......
EPA Releases Report on Flint Water Crisis
July 24, 2018
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently released a report on the management failures that led to the Flint, Michigan water crisis in 2014 and gave recommendations on how to prevent such crises from occurring in the future. The 74-page document, which follows a preliminary October 2016 report, found......
Congressman Curbelo Introduces Bill to Tax Carbon
July 24, 2018
Earlier this week, Congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) introduced H.R. 6463, the Modernizing America with Rebuilding to Kick-start the Economy of the Twenty-first Century with a Historic Infrastructure-Centered Expansion Act, or the “MARKET CHOICE Act.” This bill would amend the tax code to add tax equal to $24 per metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), with......
New Report Explores Planning for America’s Water Infrastructure Needs
July 13, 2018
Leaders in the water infrastructure industry, in association with The Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, released a report titled “Planning for America’s Water Infrastructure Need,” which focuses on shared interests and challenges likely to face water infrastructure in the future. The report came out of a workshop held in February that......
California Transportation Investment at Stake in November
June 26, 2018
California legislators voted in the spring of 2017 to raise the state’s gas tax for the first time in 23 years. Gov. Jerry Brown praised the decision and signed the bill, SB1, into law, ushering in $5 billion worth of revenue to pay for roads, bridges, and transit projects that would increase safety, ease congestion,......
Senate Appropriators Fund High Hazard Dam Rehab Program
June 22, 2018
This week, the Senate Committee on Appropriations passed its Fiscal Year 2019 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. The $48.334 billion bill, which is an increase of $611 million compared to the FY18 enacted level, includes $250 million for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Flood Hazard Mapping and Risk Analysis, which is a $12.5 million decrease......
Preparing Infrastructure for Autonomous Vehicles
June 14, 2018
On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works held a hearing entitled “Innovation and America’s Infrastructure: Examining the Effects of Emerging Autonomous Technologies on America’s Roads and Bridges.” The hearing explored questions regarding the feasibility and importance of autonomous technologies as it relates to infrastructure. The Senators’ questions were fielded by a......
U.S. Department of Transportation Released Grant Awards
June 13, 2018
Last week, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) attended an invitation only event with U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) Secretary Elaine Chao announcing the Department’s release of nearly $1.5 billion in grants to fund the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America or “INFRA” program for freight, highway, and bridge improvements created by the Fixing America’s......
Green Infrastructure Solutions in Urban Spaces
June 12, 2018
This week, the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science of America, and Soil Science Society of America hosted a Capitol Hill briefing entitled “Urban Soil and Water: Geoscience that Underlies our Economic Prosperity” that explored the important role that soil – buried beneath our urban concrete jungles – plays in reducing stormwater runoff and in......
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