U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) reintroduced the National Infrastructure Development Bank Act on Friday.
The bill would create and fund a public bank that would facilitate public-private partnerships to rebuild American roads, highways, bridges, and environmental and energy projects of national or regional significance.
“Our country is in dire need of massive investments in infrastructure. We need a robust investment to not only fix our current infrastructure state but to invest in new projects to bring our infrastructure system into the 21st century,” DeLauro said. “My bill creating a National Infrastructure Bank would help build the architecture for the future by addressing the tremendous shortfall in infrastructure investment, creating American jobs, spurring long-term economic growth, and improving our competitiveness across the globe.”
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers in their latest Infrastructure Report Card, continued underinvestment in the country’s infrastructure will cost $10 trillion in GDP, more than 3 million jobs, and $2.4 trillion in exports over the next two decades.
DeLauro’s National Infrastructure Development Bank would finance surface transportation projects, as well as energy, environmental, and telecommunications projects. The bank would consider each project’s economic and environmental impacts, social benefits, and costs objectively before selecting projects to finance.
The Congresswoman’s office said that construction employment fell by nearly 60 percent in metro areas over the course of the pandemic. DeLauro said creating the National Infrastructure Bank would boost infrastructure building, thus creating thousands of new jobs with good wages and benefits across all facets of the construction industry in rural and urban areas of the country.
“The time to act is now,” DeLauro continued. “The National Infrastructure Bank would help supplement other federal programs to allow Congress to pursue a clear, comprehensive infrastructure policy that addresses the broad scope of this issue.”