Trump needs to do better on infrastructure this time around

Richmond, Va., loses water. Jackson, Miss., loses water service. Water in Flint, Mich., is contaminated with lead.

These water infrastructure failures have made national headlines in recent years, but this is far from the full story. There is a water main break occurring every two minutes somewhere in the U.S.

Lead is a neurotoxin that is especially harmful to children, and every state has some amount of lead pipes delivering water. Worse still, lead has been found in the drinking water in many of the nation’s public schools. There are over a million people in the U.S. who do not have adequate indoor plumbing. 

Our water infrastructure is far from great. And water is just one part of the country’s decrepit infrastructure. Although the U.S. is one of the richest countries in the world, the country’s infrastructure overall only gets a C-minus grade.

When President Trump was first elected in 2016, he rightly acknowledged that the U.S. needed major infrastructure investments. As he put it, “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals.” Trump met with the building trades unions and reiterated his promise to make major investments in infrastructure.

Then he completely failed to deliver. His repeatedly unsuccessful calls for “Infrastructure Week” became a running joke. Trump needs to do better this time around.

The Biden administration succeeded where the first Trump administration failed, passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was the country’s largest investment in infrastructure in nearly a century.

If Trump wants to make America’s infrastructure great again, he should build upon the Biden administration’s achievements. There are three things that the new Trump administration should do.

First, it should continue to fund infrastructure investments. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that the country needed $2.6 trillion in investments to bring the country’s infrastructure up to a B grade. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $1.2 trillion in investments — but more can be done. It would, of course, require even larger investments if we want the country’s infrastructure to achieve an A grade.

Second, Trump should make it easier for disadvantaged communities to access infrastructure dollars. The process of applying for and receiving infrastructure investments is complicated. While there is no doubt that the process helps to prevent waste and fraud, it also makes it more difficult for the neediest and most disadvantaged communities to access funding. The federal government should do more to provide support and technical assistance to these communities.

Third, Trump should build infrastructure to adapt to a changing climate. It is well understood that climate change makes weather conditions more extreme. But it can also break or disrupt weather patterns and produce “climate weirding” — meaning that even hilly, mountainous regions like Asheville, N.C., can be devastated by flooding as we saw with Hurricane Helene last year. It also means that even the warmest states can experience cold snaps like the one that caused the Great Texas Freeze of 2021, which caused power failures across the state. New infrastructure investments must be focused on preparing us for the future stresses that climate change will bring.

Trump’s past statements show that he recognizes the need to invest in America’s infrastructure. He failed to act on this rhetoric during his first administration. Let’s hope he does better the second time around.

Algernon Austin is the Race and Economic Justice Director at the Center for Economic Policy and Research.