Better Infrastructure Requires Smarter Spending

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 Policymakers can help rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, boost the economy and save taxpayer dollars by ensuring government funded projects use an open, competitive process for selecting materials.

 Many communities across the country are currently weighed down with outdated procurement policies that restrict material selection, which unnecessarily increases the costs for public works projects and takes innovative solutions off the table.

 Adopting new procurement policies that allow for open competition in the bidding process for project materials would help communities stretch limited resources without compromising performance.

For years and years, politicians have been kicking the can down the road on infrastructure investment, delaying and deferring updates and repairs that should have been made long ago. The American Society of Civil Engineers issues a “National Report Card” every four years on how we’re doing in terms of infrastructure investment. In our 2017 report card, America got a D+.  ASCE estimates that we need to invest up to $2 trillion in our infrastructure.  

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Failure to act is not an option.  If we don’t work to solve this problem now, it will cost us all exponentially more in the long run.

The Coalition for Affordable Infrastructure’s position is simple: if we are going to have to spend a lot of money to fix our infrastructure – and we know that we are definitely going to have to – we ought to be as smart as possible about it.

This is especially necessary because construction costs have risen at an astronomical and unsustainable rate.  The Progressive Policy Institute issued a report on the subject last year.  The paper’s title speaks for itself: “Soaring Construction Costs Threaten Infrastructure Push.”

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The Coalition for Affordable Infrastructure welcomes any and all ideas about how to more efficiently invest in our infrastructure, provided that we can do so without making sacrifices in terms of quality or safety.

One area where there seems to be a particularly easy fix is in addressing our water infrastructure investment needs.  ASCE breaks out their “report card” by category.  The current state of our drinking water system gets a D grade, and our wastewater system gets a D+.

ASCE estimates that investing appropriately in our drinking and waste water systems will collectively cost $1.25 trillion over the next 25 years.  As a paper in the Harvard Political Review points out, we generally do a worse job of staying on top of water infrastructure repairs because we can see potholes, but we can’t see rusting or leaking water mains buried underground.

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While no one is under any illusions that addressing our water infrastructure needs will be easy, we ought to all agree that there is one common-sense solution that should be immediately implemented: open competition.  This means shifting standards for water infrastructure projects so that the standards for the materials used in them are performance based. A new report issued by the U.S Conference of Mayors calls open competition, “one solution that municipalities can no longer afford to overlook."  

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF OPEN COMPETITION:

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HOW MUCH MONEY COULD WE SAVE?

One estimate cited in the Brookings paper indicated that the total cost savings to taxpayers couple be as much as $371 billion. Another estimate cited in the Progressive Policy Institute report was that municipalities that don’t permit open competition are spending between 27% and 34% more than those that do. And by specifying that materials used in our water projects must meet a rigorous set of performance standards, these savings won’t mean that any corners will be cut. In fact, our water systems are likely to be safer and more reliable at a much lower cost.

Who Supports Open Competition?

Reports issued by the following groups have all called for Open Competition:

 The Progressive Policy Institute

 LONG, ELLIOTT. SOARING CONSTRUCTION COST THREATEN INFRASTRUCTURE PUSH. PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE. OCTOBER 2017. 

The Water Finance Research Foundation

THE WATER FINANCE RESEARCH FOUNDATION INCLUDES PURSUING OPEN PROCUREMENT PRACTICES AND POLICIES ON ITS LIST OF BEST PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABLE AND AFFORDABLE WATER SERVICES.