“After months of promises that it would produce a “$1.5 Trillion Infrastructure Plan,” the Trump Administration today issued a document which contains neither an infrastructure plan nor $1.5 trillion in investments.
Trump proposes to throw $200 billion at an unspecified set of projects, with unfounded hopes that over $1 trillion would magically appear to provide the vast majority of the funding. This “plan” is nothing but smoke and mirrors, and the fact that it was unveiled on the same day as a budget which slashes funding for the Department of Transportation by 19%, eliminates TIGER grants, and cuts Amtrak funding in half shows great cynicism and insincerity.
It is particularly outrageous that Trump suggested selling off key local infrastructure, including both of Northern Virginia’s airports, the GW Parkway, and the DC Aqueduct. The President didn’t consult any state or local leaders about any of this, but if he had we would have told him that our community ardently opposes anything of the kind. Trump isn’t trying to fix our infrastructure, he’s trying to sell it off.
The Administration also proposes to raise money by increasing fossil fuel production on public lands, and would waive environmental safeguards in the process of approving pipelines. This is just one more example of this Administration’s anti-public lands agenda. Their “plan” also fails to make any mention of climate change or any investments in renewable energy, on the same day the Trump budget proposed drastic cuts to clean energy infrastructure. There is no semblance of a real bipartisan effort.
Our country sorely needs stable funding to rebuild critical infrastructure and repair crumbling roads and bridges, but unfortunately the Trump Administration is not taking these problems seriously.”
The Trump Administration’s “Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America” proposes (page 19: Section VI, Part C) the “potential divestiture” of local assets, including “Ronald Reagan Washington National and Dulles International Airports; George Washington and Baltimore Washington Parkways… and Washington Aqueduct.”
