Infrastructure Week Put Off Again

By SAM URETSKY

Infrastructure week became a joke. President Trump allegedly intended to present a program for rebuilding the American infrastructure, but ran afoul of Murphy’s Law, and somehow it never happened – to the point where The Week published a column rating the Infrastructure weeks from best (Hope Springs Eternal Infrastructure Week — April 29-May 3, 2019) to worst (The Charlottesville Infrastructure Week – August 14-18, 2017).

None of them ever happened. Something always turned up that grabbed the headlines and distracted the administration from promoting its $1 trillion program. That’s a problem, because the American Society of Civil Engineers report card rates the United States’ infrastructure, roads, bridges, drinking water, and other features at a D+, essentially unchanged since 1988 when the rating program began.

To make things worse, the ASCE web site opens with a multicolored splash panel: “Tell Congress: COVID-19 relief must include infrastructure: COVID-19 has impacted our already poor and at-risk infrastructure. Tell Congress to support our #InfrastructureNow by providing emergency relief to state and local governments so they may operate, maintain, and rehabilitate our nation’s infrastructure systems to preserve our quality of life.”

In 1988, the main considerations were roads and bridges, but COVID-19 revealed other needs that weren’t apparent in the past. The pandemic has increased reliance on the Internet, both for people working from home and children going to school online.

Before the pandemic, it was possible to get by without a home computer, but now a home without a suitable computer is at a major disadvantage – and in most cases it’s a matter of money. There’s a shortage of laptops, webcams and printers – and an adequate broadband connection to run them on. The Federal Communications Commission, in its eighth broadband progress report noted the progress that has been made in expanding broadband, but then said “... the Report finds that approximately 19 million Americans—6% of the population—still lack access to fixed broadband service at threshold speeds. In rural areas, nearly one-fourth of the population —14.5 million people—lack access to this service. In tribal areas, nearly one-third of the population lacks access ...”

Not only has the United States been unprepared for COVID-19 although the Obama administration had prepared a “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents,” although Senate Majority Leader McConnell denied that such a document existed, but the record heat waves of 2020 put the lie to the climate change deniers. Admittedly there is a difference between weather and climate but Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) stunt of throwing a snowball in the Senate was thrown back at him. Last June, Pew Research reported, “At a time when partisanship colors most views of policy, broad majorities of the public – including more than half of Republicans and overwhelming shares of Democrats – say they would favor a range of initiatives to reduce the impacts of climate change, including large-scale tree planting efforts, tax credits for businesses that capture carbon emissions and tougher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles.”

This past summer, excessive heat watches, warnings and heat advisories are in effect for 12 states, including most of California. The west coast drought, combined with rising temperatures, has been responsible for the wildfires in California and Arizona. President Trump takes pride in reversing more than 70 environmental rules and regulations, with more being considered. In Kentucky, Sen. McConnell is still campaigning on his actions that favored coal miners – the few that are left since the mines went bankrupt.

But there’s more bad news about schools, because just as times have changed, so have needs. A well documented report in the journal Nature: Human Behavior is titled “Learning Is Inhibited by Heat Exposure, Both Internationally and Within the United States.” The abstract begins “ Human capital generally, and cognitive skills specifically, play a crucial role in determining economic mobility and macroeconomic growth. While elevated temperatures have been shown to impair short-run cognitive performance, much less is known about whether heat exposure affects the rate of skill formation ...” The authors studied 58 countries and 12,000 US school districts and concluded that academic performance declines with the number of 100+0 days during the school year. The implications are obvious – in addition to the already serious need for the most basic maintenance, an increasing number of schools will need air conditioning if they are going to provide quality education.

Build Back Better – ASAP.

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2020

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