As national leaders like Governor Rendell and his co-chairs at the Building America’s Future coalition—Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Bloomberg—so eloquently and effectively point out is that infrastructure needs to be moved to the front burner of our national policy conversations. Not just as a problem that needs to be dealt with, but also as a key solution to the economic, energy, and environmental challenges we face and it’s a principle driver of our nation’s prosperity.    

It turns out that hard times are the right time to focus on infrastructure. 

Now there are those who naturally see the current situation and want to spend more to repair our deficient infrastructure, to address our major gateways and corridors, to make transit more the norm than the exception. 

But this is not just about more spending. First and foremost we need reform, then we need to invest.

So let me begin with my first point: after years and years of benign neglect, infrastructure is truly getting public hearing.

First, as we all know, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that the President signed into law last Tuesday provides a lot of money for infrastructure.

Click here to read the entire speech.

Power Point Presentations from this event are listed below:

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