January 2025 Vol. 80 No. 1
Editor's Log
Editor’s Log: Where credit is due
By Robert Carpenter, Editor-in-Chief
(UI) — As the new dawn of 2025 rolls across the world, domestically we have all prepared for a quantum shift in the politics of the land. Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, is now also the 47th president of the United States. With him comes a radical redirection of America’s policies and beliefs towards governing the United States and, indeed, our relationship and participation with other countries around the globe.
How this new dynamic will play out is yet to be revealed. But I do know the often petty infighting between our parties and leaders must change. I don’t think the country will stand for a return to the old days of bitter diatribe. Rather, a shift towards plain old common sense seems to be the overwhelming hope of the land, regardless of party affiliation.
As an editor, I get flooded with all kinds of press releases. One thing I’ve gotten pretty sick of over the past three years has been nonstop announcements about funds being allotted from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
It all started with President Joe Biden’s proposal in late March 2021 for a $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan. It was a shoot-for-moon effort pitched by Biden as "a transformative effort to overhaul the nation's economy." The purported plan aimed to create millions of jobs, bolster labor unions, expand labor protections all while addressing climate change. Not unexpectedly, the massive spending bill hit a brick wall built by Republicans and even several Democrats.
Predictably, all kinds of counter proposals were subsequently introduced by multiple legislators and the infrastructure spending was spun off into a separate bill. After months of political posturing – and a wide variety of new names for the bill and retargeted focusing of its contents – from a plethora of Republicans and Democrats, both the Senate and House passed the $550 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law by President Biden on Nov. 15, 2021.
To most of us who participate within various infrastructure industries, it was a welcome relief package to provide a small shot in the arm for America’s decaying infrastructure. What I hope legislators realize going forward (the five-year spending plan has two years remaining) is that just the sewer and water industries alone could have fully used all $550 billion allotted to various markets. And that still wouldn’t have been enough funding to complete restoration of our precious infrastructure. Still, the billions that were allotted for sewer/water/electric/telecom were a welcome, albeit inadequate, investment.
All of this background brings us to the never-ending quest for credit. For the last two-and-a-half years, as the funding has been released, I receive regular correspondence from the EPA, U.S. Department of Energy, direct from the Biden-Harris Administration, from Senators, Representatives and even Governors, all touting their role in obtaining funds for various constituents from the now-called “Biden-Harris Infrastructure Act:”
- This latest round of funding for the water pipeline is part of $514 million approved for water projects investment, as part of President Joseph Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
- Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper welcomed the announcement from the Bureau of Reclamation that $250 million in new funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would be made available to expedite construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit.”
- President Biden's Investing in America agenda has allowed us to begin work on long overdue water storage projects, providing clean, reliable drinking water to families, farmers and Tribes throughout the West, said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.
I could go on with dozens of these types of credit-claiming public officials. The reality is that President Biden had an untenable concept that both Republican and Democrats rejected but eventually took part of the idea and worked together (for a change) to weave into reality and desperately needed infrastructure bill. There should be ample credit to go around.
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