When Rep. Peter DeFazio, the new House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, opened his panel’s first infrastructure hearing in the new Congress, he tapped some buttons on his phone and, on purpose, set off what sounded like a warning klaxon. “That is the alarm sounding for America’s infrastructure,” the Oregon Democrat told the scores of attendees at the Feb. 7 hearing. He added that “there’s a four-alarm situation in front of us.”
The questions are whether a majority in Congress and the Trump administration will respond to that alarm—and if so, when, and where will the additional money come from. The infrastructure spending gap is wide: DeFazio cited the American Society of Civil Engineers’ estimate of $2 trillion over 10 years.
