economic crisis, a lot happened. the stimulus bill, and i kind of handicapped that one because getting all additions spend money usually is not a heavy lift, but the auto bailout, other things. a lot happened in the first 100 days, but that has been more the exception than the norm. would iing forward, think is different and distinct about this administration is that the divide has seemed too hard in a little bit. i have been heartened because the reg reform stuff feels pretty real, but even then, to get anything meaningful done, you have to be able to legislate. that does mean is 60 votes. on any of the big meaningful stuff, it is difficult ring out to see that happening. even though in previous administrations, a lot of the big stuff, tax things, got done in the summer, it is hard to look out in the summer and have confidence that there will be an

ability to get tax reform done and health care reform. >> let's turn to tax reform. >> and we will take you back live to the committee for economic development, their annual spring policy conference, and this discussion coming up on infrastructure. live here on c-span. >> the next section focuses on and for structure policy. when you look back to the causes of the great economic boon between the 1980's in the financial crisis, there are a lot of parents. you cannot understate the amount of infrastructure built in the 1980's and the amount of capacity added and the contribution of that infrastructure to the boom. as somebody who ran companies during that time and relied heavily on the infrastructure, i the benefits well

of getting ahead of our infrastructure needs. the challenge today is that so much of our infrastructure lies in less than good repair, which is a huge opportunity from a maintenance standpoint that also our capacity needs are quite diversity of those needs go well beyond surface transportation. i had the opportunity to serve on a transportation commission. it was a 12 person commission. he spent three years studying the national policy and revenue issues in the country and coming up with a plan. i have learned an incredible amount about infrastructure since then. the experts we have before us today have forgotten more than i have ever known. i'm very pleased to have all them here. first of all, our moderator of hrwill be robin, vp policy at the national

association of manufacturers. prior to her work at the association she served as counselor to the assistant secretary at the u.s. dot. we also have tom armstrong. -- ceda cd member member. finally dr. rick. the doctor worked with us on our new infrastructure brief. this is the first time in the modern era ced has tackled infrastructure. i hope you get a chance to pick it up and read it. it is hot off the press and we are introducing it at this conference. with that, robin, take it away. robin: hello?

i am not technologically adept. thank you. ok, great. [laughter] hello? ok, we will share. sorry for that. thank you much for the nice introduction, steve. it is great to be on this panel. i'm with the national association of manufacturers. we are very excited. this is a great time to be in manufacturing. it is also a great time to be talking about infrastructure. really appreciate ced taking a leadership role and introducing policy structure this year. the president has outlined what is a very ambitious goal to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure. beyond that the details are still very much in the works.

i think this is a good time to ask our panelists, i will ck forly ask risk -- ri this one. do groundswell of support -- you see a groundswell of support? >> with a lot of anguish and gnashing of teeth. to the extent they can bring it together. on the second part first, the groundswell of support, in my years of studying infrastructure , there has always been a problem of getting the public's attention. -- you need the i-35 bridge to collapse with school buses on it to get attention. there we go. i'm going to project. is that there is renewed public awareness and public interest in the

importance of infrastructure in the u.s. i think that crosses sectoral lines. roads,s focus on bridges, tunnels, airports. there is also renewed awareness of water infrastructure, like our drinking water systems, particularly in my part of the country, are out -- are outdated. a lot of energy infrastructure is on the edge in a lot of cases. transmission and distribution systems. i really excited to see this awareness that has been brought about i think by the campaign. one of the few things that both candidates agreed on was the need to focus on infrastructure. that focus is great, i hope that continues. civil engineers at cornell are very excited about that. but i think the issue is going to be funding. i want to make a distinction here that stephen, wherever he

is, is going to come at me with a hatchet because he has heard me say this so many times. they don't provide funding. it is a financing delivery mechanism. the funding has to come from some sort of a user fee. the state of oregon, my hat is off to them for experimenting with a feet where you pay for the use of the road, not per gallon of gasoline. you can experiment with more tolls, which we are doing in the country. lanes, people might be aware of northern virginia adding a hotline -- hot lane. or dedicated tax revenue. you have to use -- you have to raise user fees or dedicate broader tax money to infrastructure.

once you have the funding than 's, privateng in pvp sector participation is a bankable projects. that means a some sort of dedicated revenue source. i don't want to talk too long but i will note that i think we're living in the middle of an amazing laboratory of federalism-type era where a lot as a state and local issue. and i think the states are rising to the occasion and that there is a whole diversity of responses. some are raising state-level gas taxes, others are experimenting. others are raising tolls. virginia has a dedicated sales tax. others are dedicating money through availability payments, for performance-based projects. i think bringing in clear performance standards through a contract which has enforceable stakes built in the contract is a way forward.

i'm hoping that both sides of the aisle, fingers crossed, can come together at this time for some sort of a major bill, but i hope it would also focus on operation and maintenance of the existing stuff. this countrycky in that we have had decades of unprecedented mobility to the interstate highway system, state roads, local streets that we have the no civilization in history has even come close. we have had this for decades, and now it is old. our job is just to receive money to the operation and maintenance of the existing system and not really focus on building new, shiny things. i'm hoping we can come together for that. robin: i think that is a great assessment. rob, i'm going to turn this to you next. your perspective, how you might see a $1 trillion for shush her effort come together and what are some of the pieces that would come into play. >> thank you all for having me

here. to talk aboutge $1 trillion because it is a huge amount. had to it makes people's spin a little bit. a 4 trillion now deficit now. it comes out every year, gets a lot of attention. people understand this is an issue need to focus on. but the numbers are so big i think it makes people's head spin. how do you get $1 trillion? the challenge is we're not specific. it is an abstract conversation about infrastructure in general. there is really not any infrastructure. water,s transportation, energy, all kinds of different things. it matters not just because of eachukee think tank -- sector is designed, governed and delivered very differently. we talk about $1 trillion a

think there's an expectation that that number is so big only the federal government can do with it. it has to be a big national thing. when you think about infrastructure, even in areas like transportation and water, only about 27%, 30% of that money comes from the federal government. there is a reinvention of federalism -- i know it's out wonky ---- it sounds need to get very specific now because we need to deliver on this promise. we need to define what we mean by infrastructure. it's not just roads and potholes and public transit. it probably includes real estate and public buildings and social infrastructure. once you start adding in all these different areas, i can see how you get to $1 trillion and how the private sector would have a big role in that. it's right to focus on this.

it's an audacious goal. i think the focus on partnerships is the right one. but now we need to be very specific about what we mean by infrastructure. robin: thank you. we have over 13,000 members and it is exciting to have tom here, who is a member of the nan. i want to dig more into the details. one thing we do is really try to tell the story of manufacturers and why infrastructure is so important to manufacturing. your company relies on infrastructure. we still to traditional infrastructure markets. you need raw materials to reach her facilities in south carolina as well as finish projects that are going to customers i assume around the world. what are some of your challenges you face? >> i am feeling very good about ourchallenges now because south carolina legislature is

facing a $1 billion deficit in infrastructure when they are talking about trillions. i feel pretty good about the number not being that large. but the focus is that for a manufacturer you need all the components of that infrastructure to come together. transportation is important, very important to us is education. as people get more skills needed and the skill levels need to be there. energy is a big one for us. i like to joke that for the last year or two, if you are supplying to the energy business, you are hating business. if you are a large user of energy, your loving it. we talk about aging infrastructure and the lifecycle of infrastructure, last year there was a breakdown in alabama in the colonial pipeline. that particular breakdown caused the entire state of north carolina and significant

portions of south carolina and virginia to go dry at the gas pump for about three days. if our infrastructure is stretch that finley in those areas we have a real problem of deferred maintenance and overtaking to make that a better situation. had that cause been in the natural gas pipeline versus the gasoline pipeline, our business would have been entirely shut down for that entire period because that availability of natural gas would not have been there for our operations. robin: we have a lot of interesting conversations here in washington about the role of the federal government, the role of states. there is a lot of natural tension about who is ultimately ,esponsible for infrastructure who comes in to save the day when something breaks or does not work as planned. but moreover, states are very important partners when it comes to nudge developing infrastructure, but developing

-- delivering the assets. i think there are important lessons to be learned with success at the state level. states have been wildly successful at passing initiatives to increase sales taxes, fund infrastructure initiatives. wanted too ask r -- i someick, what are successes that the federal government can learn from the states? rick: that's a great question. , robertgoing on now emphasized this as well, it is an interesting shift in the role of the federal government, vis-a-vis the states. we think it about the history -- president eisenhower signed the act that created the highway system in 1956. at the time that was the height of the cold war. president eisenhower had also been supreme commander of allied forces in europe and had seen

with the germans had done with the autobahn. the autobahn in the 1930's looks almost exactly like rh state highway system does today, with large highways with limited access etc. you realize we really could not move military vehicles around the united states. that was part of the motivation. there was really a big, federal effort. it was a moon of shipments and people, partly national defense. but to nittany nation together. there was a big increase in the federal gas tax at that time. there had been a small tax, but it big increase to fund the construction of the interstate highway system, which took decades to complete. role jumped-- state enormously to design and construct that system. timeis happened since that , gas taxes at the time of

eisenhower were pretty much like user fees. ford, about the same mileage as a four-door oldsmobile or a chevy. if you jewel a mile on the interstate you use about the same amount of fuel. everyone has heard of a double whammy. the gas taxes are facing a quadruple whammy. cars are not using gasoline in some cases. more people are driving tesla. the engines that do use gasoline are much more fuel-efficient. hybrids and gas engines are just more efficient. there are completely alternative fuels. also the gas taxes are not indexed to inflation. people are also driving less. vehicle miles traveled are declining. there are a lot of reasons why the revenue into the federal highway trust fund is declining. and that is defect oh without the political will to make that

federal gas tax higher. defacto devolving it to the states. virginia has created its own public partnership office. my hat is off to the state dot for doing that. texas has been pretty good with innovating in terms of alternative delivery systems. those are financing mechanisms. florida has been very good as well in innovating in the delivery port of miami tunnel. i won't go into the details but deliveryinnovative p3 contract. in terms of funding, as an economist, i have to come back to oregon, which has really gone to try to do the right thing. which is to go through three pilot projects of switching from a per gallon feet on gas or diesel fuel to a per mile fee, just like where paying for a kilowatt hour of electricity.

for a minute a cell phone use we should be paying per kilometer of road that we use. states that are pushing forward in net innovative funding fashion i think states that we should be looking to. others like california and minnesota are starting to follow. robin: thank you for that overview. an interesting conversation in the all about an investment that was made many years ago about highway drainage in your region. it turned out to not make sense at the time, but has today made for amazing growth. when we look back and think about the eisenhower interstate and that investment, it created enormous productivity gains for american manufacturing and industry. if you could talk a little about that. tom: that is part of the reason our company is located in upstate south carolina. 1960's as the

interstate system was developing , there was a relatively small textile company and a small local government that found out because of the soil nature in south carolina, you can have a population density of about a , so this four per acre group of the textile company and the local municipality went and obtained a federal grant to install a sewage plant. they were able to negotiate a federal grant that created a sewage plant four times the size of the current need. by doing that they committed to a state-of-the-art sewage plant that was built, and that is part of why the huge economic development we have seen in upstate south carolina developed over that period from the late 1960's up until the recent addition -- not recent anymore, ofhas been over 15 years --

bmw coming into our area. they have done interesting infrastructure as well. it is one of the largest landfills in our area. it is now supplying over 50% of the energy needs for that the w 411,000 the produce house last year. they are taking methane gas out of the landfill that is producing over half of their energy need for that facility. robin: rob, the want to close out this conversation about successes at the state level and what we have seen and how to employ those tactics as we approach larger for structure initiative? rob: it's more about taking those lessons. i think there was this feeling that there was a pyramid structure. that might have been the case years ago. it is just not the case anymore. states have really taken the lead role.

laboratories of democracy for all the reasons rick mentioned. all the innovation -- it is a very different conversation that what is happening here in washington. a lot of handwringing and frustration about slowness and all that. it's a very different conversation in the statehouses where governors are getting things done, it is much more bipartisan -- nonpartisan. and they move much more quickly. states were taking their cues from washington for a number of years. it seems to be reversed. state saluting, metropitan areas are leading. their role is being more permissive in allowing that innovation to happen. i think we're going to see that with the new administration. trying to get the government out of places where they are hindering things from happening on a local level. they had this restriction for tolling on the interstates. it may have made sense in 1956 but it doesn't make sense now what interstates are going to the middle of the cities.

they can do all different kinds of innovations. those are coming from the local level on the way up. robin: thank you for that. we tested a little bit on funding here in this part of the conversation. when of the big challenges obviously is how to fund a large infrastructure initiative. even just had to fund the next highway bill or any other infrastructure initiatives that may pass congress. the highway trust fund is expected to run low on funds again in 2020. the question here is, is it time to move beyond traditional sources, infrastructure funding let the gas tax? is there an opportunity ahead to change the dynamic? >> yes. it is time to change the dynamic. as an economist, i would predict the federal government is not going to come up with a huge, new funding source. as a said, the federal highway trust fund revenues have

declined faster than predicted. there is a shortfall in the federal highway trust fund. if you're going to spend $1 trillion it either has to come or it some other program is just $1 trillion added to the debt. i'm not sure that that is going to fly in this case, which is why it want to go back to the point i made earlier of trying to come up with a sustainable, fair, funding source is a really important concept. the switch to network-based pricing -- i know people don't often think of rose as a utility. i would urge us to start thinking of roads like we think about other network utilities like natural gas, water and electric, communications etc. that requires that virtually all use of the system be priced in

some way. the second step in that process -- i have a paper i am proud of with peter up there -- on congestion pricing. basically, every single traffic ,ongestion that you encounter an economist thinks of as a shortage of road space at that time. in other words, the price of the use of the road is too low at that time. in principle if prices were allowed to fluctuate, we could clear the market for road space and eliminate all traffic congestion. this is the way it is done in electricity where they will be the time pricing. there is a dual role played by switching to mile-based user fees. on the west coast they call them produces charges. that is to provide a sustainable , equitable funding source where you use a lane mile road, you pay for a lane mile road.

but also to help both allocate the demand and allocate the supply of the road system. my hope as an economist would be that we would switch to that. as i said, some states are doing that for almost all new capacity where you add a . lane, it will be variably told. i can go to different facilities where that is true. a lot of companies are helping state dot to help things called managed lanes. like around austin, texas. they are variably priced in real to clear the market for road space. i would hope that as you move forward. challenging in the sense that we're used to paying very little to assess to our roads and transit and other pieces of infrastructure we use on a regular basis. tom, you run a business. of do we stack up in terms government or

state or local counties manager operate infrastructure. i'm sure it is not very rational in the way you look at things. tom: it becomes very different at the state level than at the federal level. south carolina, we have what is called an infrastructure bank. the difference between running infrastructure bank in south carolina and the federal government's south carolina cannot print money to make the ever structure bank not balance its budget. the amount of borrowing capacity they have is literally based on the state comptroller's ability to go into the market and raise funds known that we cannot inflate our way out of that situation. the infrastructure bank is under heavy demand as to how the projects got prioritized. the bonding capability with --

will absorb that. you cannot go into a deficit situation for any extended period as a result of that. prioritization of the projects has to be very, very well-defined by the group that is doling out that grants to other projects. robin: you have done a lot of work in this area. more like a unified transportation trust fund. if you could talk about the antiquated funding sources and maybe how we could look at investing in infrastructure in the future. level, the national federal gasoline tax which provides so much revenue and resources for the federal government to send -- spend is in decline. in looking for different source, think was the national commission that you are try to focus on. what are we going to do next? we haven't made much progress on the federal level. but state and cities, metropolitan areas are pulling

at all the stops. everything is on the table. they are using lots of different resources. to thee not exactly tied infrastructure being used. i don't know if that is a bad idea or not and a lot of people are debating that. but they are not waiting around for washington to act or for the state legislatures to ask. -- to act. last november we had a pretty big election. there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions that were before voters on election day all across the country asking them to raise money for all kinds of different infrastructure. dr. sprint rotation -- not just transportation. 75% of these passed on election day. consider what happened a few years before that. it's a different conversation happening outside the beltway here in washington. people are willing to tax them selves willing to invest in infrastructure. bipartisan approaches to it.

they are using lots of different methods. and we see this on election day. different conversations happening here in washington today. robin: this is the last question to the panel from me. if we have time we will to to the audience. we spent a lot of time talking about this potential for $1 trillion and for such effort. i often look back and think to the stimulus of the past ministration. it was $787 billion. less than 10% of it went to infrastructure. we can say what we want about the stimulus, but that was a achieve ao not greater gain for infrastructure and deal with priorities. that our entire infrastructure system was faced with. as a said, each panelist can offer a responses. can you talk about a mistake or a failure or even a lesson learned of a past infrastructure effort and suggest how to avoid

a repeat of that same mistake? so, i guess three words -- bridge to nowhere. avoid problems with project selection. both the less comments talked on project selection, and how -- i think that soured the public on not just the bridge to nowhere -- number.rget that bridge tos the nowhere. i think that soured the public on spending more money on infrastructure for many years after that. if we can use more rigorous benefit cost analysis of projects with clear, transparent criteria. we're discount rates. everything you need to do. solid economically-based analysis. try to remove the politics from

it, which may be stay in for chapter banks are better at doing than the fed, then i think we can slowly restore trust. in terms of the states, we can talk about the recovery spending later or during q&a. i think that is going to be key. quirks one of the complaints of the local neighborhoods, if we have more activity in the port of charleston, that will send a lot more trucks through a high-end neighborhood that is a suburb of charleston. the way the state court authorities sold the problem was in myut in a report

neighborhood in rear south carolina in upstate that is actually a rail facility, and we have dated today both-way rail allowing faster, cheaper access to the port of takes overand also 400 tractor-trailers a day off 26. portion of interstate >> i agree we missed an opportunity to really invest in infrastructure. there was the same kind of doeste then where there need to be bipartisan support, but because we were hemorrhaging jobs and had to get the money , again, it made sense i think at that time, but looking back, it's hard not to feel like we did miss an

opportunity to invest in long-term projects that were not just things that we need to get done -- the mundane stuff had to be done, but we missed an opportunity to invest in projects that would truly position the economy for something better in the future, grow the economy and not just put people back to work in the short term. it's hard to forget just how important that was at the time, but we actually could have done both. >> thank you. now to the audience. >> thank you. i have a question -- i'm from new york. i'm a veteran in the rail industry and a member of the ced. my name is paul haskins.

what we have noticed working in a global company is that there has been a very strong demand for urban lifestyle, which clearly creates the need for public transportation in order to sustain a strong urban lifestyle. one of the three most ingredients is clearly public transportation. this has occurred not just in large cities like new york but also in what were at one time 18-our cities like austin, texas 18-hour cities like austin, texas. do you think that the public transportation on the municipal levels, local levels -- does it have to all come from the local level? can there be participation on the federal level, and do you think there can be some sort of ? blic/private partnership

it appears the demand is going to continue. >> can i go first? because that's exciting. thank you, mr. haskins. i want to say something that is very interesting in this. tell me when it's not. ever since the second world war, if you look at a graph of vehicle miles traveled in the united states, since the second world war, the trendline went up andup through recessions downturns and slowdowns. this relatively steady increase until about 2005 or 2006, and np -- then p -- the mp's slowly decreased. there are many theories, and one being that young people are different. when you were 16, the first thing you wanted to do was get

your drivers license, go out and drink beer. but the younger people, when thierry is that they are connected through their electronic devices all the time, and that's the way they interact, and they don't feel they need to get their driver's all the as early and do driving. i think your point is exactly right about them being more urbanized and more willing to live in an urban environment. i also think part of that is interesting is that they have less concerns about privacy than the vu and i do. on the public transportation -- less concerns about privacy than maybe you and i do. on public transportation, i've come to the conclusion that families are pretty bad car owners. we are bad at high in cars, maintenance, and bad at selling vehicles when it is time to do that. we would be better off not to own cars.

-- theympany like hertz are good at this. the family of the future i think will if you think of the combination between a driverless vehicle, an electric vehicle, and uber, you will pay a monthly and say youyour app want to go to work and a car that might have several people in it -- it will be an electric vehicle -- will take you to work and dropped everybody off roughly in the same place in the city and you all get out, and the thing will go read charge. i'm not optimistic about public transportation changing fundamentally. i think it is going to change through the technological revolution that we are already seeing in transportation that is almost mind-boggling. maybe combine those -- some of the business people here can think about the business model for that, which you would

have a monthly fee that would be standard, luxury, economy, and you do not own the vehicle, and that is the way we will get around in the future. that is my kind of futuristic answer, but maybe others know more about public transit. yes, i think what you're saying is certainly happening. certainly in big cities, certainly new york, chicago, the jobsn, but 30% of in metropolitan areas in the united states are not accessible by public transit within 90 minutes. if we give everybody 90 minutes .o get to work it is not going to cover everybody, even in places that are smaller, but there is a ,ecognition how important it is and there are advancements starting to happen. those referenda that i mentioned, the vast majority of the money that was raised was for public transit. $120 billion plus in los

angeles, $50 billion in seattle. giant, giant numbers. inse are places investing these modes because they recognize it is important to the economic future of these places. was saying, it is a bit of a chicken and eggs a happening because we have all these technologies, and i'm not sure young people care necessarily if they are taking the bus or public transit or or lyft asor uber long as they're getting to work. it is a big country, and there's lots of experiments. >> thank you. i have worked for a long time at world bank, and we invested all over the world in infrastructure. these days, we have in parallel,

the world bank imf spring meetings. work for a long, long time, replenishment of many funds. how do you fund raise to finance infrastructure worldwide? i am currently one of about 200 billion. some of them will go to d.o.t., hopefully, and elaine chao, but it's also worldwide, so the isht with the funds fantastic, and the perks associated -- very interesting. with the federal reserve on worldwide infrastructure. just wanted to mention. >> you want to take that question?

>> is there one more question? >> there's one in the back. i'm charlie clark, reporter with government executive. a few years ago, there was legislation to create a national infrastructure bank. i was hoping you could comment on if that idea should get revived. >> a lot of people in my sector of public policy have great theration for transportation, innovation, financing and infrastructure act. anyone today can go and google and find out the rate. that is a well-respected office project prioritization for projects as written in the law, national and regional significance. it cannot be something like

replacing a guard. and they provide low-cost loans. i want to give a shout out to secretary anthony walks, who i think quietly in the second term of the obama administration did a lot with any u.s. dot to bring together these different groups that are facilitating public/private partnerships, facilitating credit support for economically beneficial projects of national and regional significance. i will not go into the gory details of what is happening, but i think a lot of us say if you are going to create a national infrastructure bank, try to work with what we already had because we already have a good team within u.s. dot and we tifia and theseh other groups -- the office of innovative program delivery, doing a very good job under one

umbrella now, and think about how we can integrate existing that are doing a great job, and if we want to expand that -- we can talk about how you might do that later -- we should do so. >> i think our panel is about to get the hook. just to piggyback on that, build america bureau. google that. that is a structure that was fia and otherlp ti financing programs. >> the one thing i've learned about infrastructure is you have to remember these really long names with acronyms and they did a great job remembering all of that. let's give them a big brown of applause. [applause] all right, well, thank you very much. we have one more meaning in our panel today before we break, and that is a really urgent panel focusing on immigration reform