As advocates for spending more on highways, transit, water and other public-works projects gathered for the sixth annual Infrastructure Week’s more than 100 media events and panel discussions, it was clear that a wide-ranging bill won’t be coming this year.
With image recognition, Big Data analysis and artificial intelligence coming to define construction, outdated and inefficient contracting and project management practices won’t cut it to build critical infrastructure projects at the scale and speed needed now.
A U.S. Dept. of Transportation plan to reshape and rename the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, grants has come under fire from senior Senate appropriators. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee responsible for DOT’s budget, and Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the panel’s top Democrat, say DOT’s plan to make states’ and localities’ ability to raise transportation revenue a grant-selection criterion is a bad idea.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, appearing at two House hearings on April 26, faced criticism about the agency’s proposed fiscal year 2019 budget request and also was grilled about controversies surrounding his management and use of agency resources.
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