Infrastructure, cont'd. 

You know, we forget that infrastructure is for people . . . and communities. It puts skilled people to work, and so it benefits those communities in which they live. And incidentally, that’s why I’m so strong for the Davis-Bacon law and why the attempts to repeal it are working against the best interests of the country. Davis-Bacon benefits everybody, not just unions, because it sets a standard wage in the local area and provides for fair bidding, good design and safe engineering. Yes, and minorities also get a far better shake under Davis-Bacon requirements, notwithstanding some partisan state-ments to the contrary.

It’s interesting that this law was passed in 1931 by a Republican Congress and President and in a real sense was a precursor to what FDR did in the public works arena. It is safe to say that you couldn’t have had a successful infrastructure program in the ‘30s without Davis-Bacon. Now the Republicans want to repeal it.

How are we going to get Congress to recognize the enormous physical infrastructure needs of this country? Let me give you some figures on the problem. Maybe they will be striking enough to impress Congress.

We have about 4 million miles of public roads in this country, and total highway travel is steadily increasing. Our urban roads in particular are getting battered. Yet in constant dollars our spending on roadways has declined more than 50 percent since 1960 [pause]. Congestion costs us over $39 billion a year, not counting the environmental cost [pause]. Finally, according to the Depart-ment of Transportation, just to eliminate all the existing backlog of highway and bridge deficiencies as of January 1, 1993, the cost would come to nearly $300 billion dollars.

Looking twenty years out, the D.O.T. concluded that just making modest improvements in our roads and bridges—to give them something between 8 and 12 remaining years of life—would cost over $67 billion a year, or [pause] nearly $1.4 trillion dollars in total.

You folks in this room may not be shocked at these figures, but do you think the public has any idea that such a bill is coming due? The Environmental Protection Agency tells us that in 1992, just to comply with the requirements of the Clean Air Act, we would have had to spend $137 billion on treatment plants, sewers, and other sources of pollution.

And I haven’t even talked about airports, power systems, transit and so forth. From any point of view, infrastructure is the absolutely essential underpinning to the economy. Public investment is critical, and that’s why we’re here. But let’s also not forget about people.

The National Geographic Explorer did a great TV show the other night on the Sand Hogs blasting and digging the new water tunnel 60 stories under New York City. They interviewed people in Brooklyn and Queens, as well as workers who talked about their pride, their skills, and those who had given their lives on the project. And then when the guys came back to the vast, brand-new distribution station that had finally gotten built through their efforts . . . well, words failed them. They couldn’t believe that their work had led to this grand structure.

I know my friend Jim Jeffords of Vermont will address the “people issues” in the next panel, but I have to say that the new infrastructure cannot get built without these kinds of skilled, dedicated workers. We simply have to invest in them and in their training. There is no other way.

Thank you very much.