May 2021 Volume 3

WASHINGTON UPDATE

The American Jobs Plan and Lobbying for the Future By Steve Haro

TheCOVID-19 pandemic has continued to drive government public policy for well over a year now. Major actions taken by Congress and the Trump and Biden administration sought to eliminate the virus’s threat while also cushioning the economic hardship created by the necessary measures taken to slow and contain the virus’s spread. This included Congress passing multiple bipartisan initiatives in 2020 totaling more than $4 trillion in direct economic relief to individuals, schools, small businesses, hard-hit economic sectors, health care providers, and our public health infrastructure. On March 11th, President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan into law. In addition to funding vaccine distribution and other items to deal directly with the COVID-19 response, the legislation also provided substantial economic support for lower- income Americans and working families. Key provisions of that legislation included: • $300 per week in enhanced federal unemployment benefits through September 6, 2021; • a $3,000 child tax credit for children ages six to 17 and $3,600 for children under the age of six; • $1,400 in direct payment stimulus checks for those under a certain income threshold; and • $7.25 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program, among of host of other investments. Nearly 600,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 related illnesses. Students have had to adjust to remote learning. Families have missed holidays, weddings, and funerals. Millions of jobs have been lost. And though it feels like we are turning a corner, our economy is still in a fragile-enough state to where many policymakers, economists, and the American public believe more should be done. Enter infrastructure. For many years and multiple presidential administrations now, Washington has dreamed of passing a major infrastructure package. Universal, bi-partisan agreement existed on the package’s need given the dilapidated state of our nation’s transit systems, highways, roads, bridges, ports, airports, waterways, and the like. But alas, that dream has not been realized because agreement always falls apart when it comes time to determine how to pay for the need. And with each passing day, the need – and thus, the cost – grows. But for the first time in a long time, the dynamics of the need for further economic recovery assistance by the federal government in the wake of the pandemic could actually thaw the previously frozen status of this effort with the cautiously optimistic amongst

us steadily believing that 2021 could indeed be the year that a major nationwide infrastructure package makes it to the president’s desk. The dynamics for success are tenuous, but they are there. So for this edition of the Washington Update, we’re going to first delve into what a proposed infrastructure plan could look like and how it can benefit our industry. Then we will discuss the politics of the possible and what it will take to get it done. The American Jobs Plan On March 31st, the White House released a framework for an infrastructure bill titled “The American Jobs Plan” calling it “an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs, rebuild our country’s infrastructure, and position the United States to out- compete China.” The blueprint calls for $2 trillion in spending over the next eight years and takes a holistic approach to improving the country’s infrastructure beyond the traditional definition of transit systems. We break the plan’s proposed ideas into seven buckets below. Transportation The planwould look to spend$621billionmodernizing20,000miles of highways, roads, and main streets; fix the 10 most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction; repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges; replace thousands of buses and rail cars; repair hundreds of transit stations; renew airports; and expand transit and rail into new communities. Digital If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that access to broadband is now more critical than ever. And not everyone has access. So, for the first time, the definition of “infrastructure” has been expanded to recognize the importance broadband plays in making our lives work – just as highways, bridges and airports do. As such, the blueprint would fund $100 billion to build high-speed broadband infrastructure to reach 100 percent coverage to every American, while also looking to reduce the cost of broadband internet service and promote more widespread adoption. Energy The plan would also focus on our country’s power infrastructure and recommend spending $100 billion to: • build a more resilient electric transmission system; • spur jobs modernizing power generation and delivering clean electricity; and • put the energy industry to work plugging orphan oil and gas wells and cleaning up abandoned mines.

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FIA MAGAZINE | MAY 2021