VIDEO: Chair DeFazio Stresses the Need for Significant Federal Investment in U.S. Infrastructure After Newly Released ‘Report Card’ Shows Little Improvement

New report from the American Society of Civil Engineers gives America’s infrastructure a C-

T&I Chair DeFazio: “This is not acceptable. The States can’t go it alone. The cities can’t go it alone. They need a Federal partner.”

Washington, DC- Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR) renewed his call for passing a transformational infrastructure bill in the new Congress after the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave U.S. infrastructure an overall grade of C- on its 2021 Infrastructure Report Card.

ASCE releases its Infrastructure Report Card once every four years, assigning an overall letter grade to our Nation’s infrastructure by assessing all relevant data and reports and consulting with technical and industry experts. This year, ASCE also gave grades to 17 infrastructure categories, including roads, bridges, aviation, ports, rail, wastewater infrastructure, and more. You can read the full 2021 report here.

“Once again we have a comprehensive scorecard from the American Society of Civil Engineers and America’s overall infrastructure is rated at C minus. Wastewater, highways, transit are all rated in the Ds. This is not acceptable,” Chair DeFazio said, underscoring decades of underinvestment at the Federal level. “The States can’t go it alone. The cities can’t go it alone. They need a Federal partner.”

Chair DeFazio, whose transformational infrastructure legislation passed the House last year but stalled in the Republican-led Senate, is ready to get to work.

“We had seven fake Infrastructure Weeks under Trump…President Biden is dead serious about rebuilding our Nation’s infrastructure, moving our infrastructure into the 21^st century and creating millions of jobs as we rebuild it. Rebuild it resilient for severe weather events, rebuild it in a way that begins to de-fossilize transportation, the largest contributor to climate change in the United States and this is something that must get done and this scorecard highlights it.”

Watch Chair DeFazio’s statement here.

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