Introduction to the BUILD Act

Thank you, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Richard Trumka, the President of the AFL-CIO and Tom Donohue, the Chairman and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for joining in this bi-partisan effort. I'd also like to thank Bernard Schwartz, who has promoted the idea of an infrastructure bank for years.

This bill -- and the coalition united to pass it -- is a statement about where we are today and where we need to go tomorrow.

The reality is that, today we're living with difficult budget circumstances, not just in Washington, but in every state, city, and town in America. We must all do more with less.

The reality is also that reliable, modern infrastructure isn't a luxury. It's the lifeblood of our economy-- the key to connecting our markets, moving products, people, information and energy, and the key to generating and sustaining millions of jobs for American workers. In the face of global competition, our growth and exports are directly tied to the modernity of our infrastructure.

And the reality couldn't be more stark: experts say we will need to invest $250 billion for each of the next fifty years just to meet our nation's surface transportation needs and it will cost more than $2 trillion to bring our country's existing infrastructure to an acceptable level. We aren't even close to that level of investment today, and given our budget situation we won't be tomorrow.

So what do we do? Do we give up on the notion that America can lead the world in the 21st century and cede our leadership to others? Do we stand by while China invests nine percent of its GDP and Europe invests five percent on their infrastructure and we barely invest two? Do we stand by and do nothing while they modernize seaports, expand airports and build high speed rail lines?

Or do we find common ground with creative thinking that pushes the curve and remembers that the American exceptionalism we all talk about isn't automatic -- no, America is exceptional because when it really matters, we come together and do exceptional things. Lyndon Johnson hailed from Kay's state of Texas. And when the Soviets were beating us in the space race, he said, "first in space means first, period; second in space is second in everything." Well, today, in the race for global economic leadership, second in infrastructure is second in everything.

We are here today because we refuse to let that happen. We are here today because we refuse to be second. Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, we are united to support the establishment of an American infrastructure bank in the United States to leverage private investment to once again make America the world's builders -- building roads and bridges, highways and rail, creating millions of jobs, increase our long-term economic competitiveness and closing another deficit, a different deficit - the deficit in America's infrastructure investments.

The Republican Mayor of New York City Fiorello LaGuardia famously said: "There's no Republican or Democratic way to clean the streets." For decades there was no Democratic or Republican way to build roads and bridges and airports. The building of America was every American's job. It wasn't narrow pork; it was a national priority. Over the last 20 years that consensus frayed somehow -- so today, we're still living off and wearing out the infrastructure put in place by Republicans and Democrats together, starting with President Eisenhower's interstate highway system. We didn't build it; our parents and grandparents did. Partisan paralysis has kept us from renewing that inheritance even as it decays from neglect. Today, we are united to make a bi-partisan issue bi-partisan once again.

The BUILD Act will create a new American Infrastructure Bank to leverage private capital with public funds in the form of loans and loan guarantees to help bridge the infrastructure deficit that has been plaguing our nation for decades. The Bank will invest in economically viable infrastructure projects of regional or national significance and can leverage as much as $640 billion in the first decade alone - complementing existing Federal, State, local, and private funding sources. The Bank will invest in transportation, water and energy infrastructure, and it will do all these things in urban, suburban, and rural America.

This is new thinking -- an entity that will operate without political influence to finance projects based on their national and regional importance, not their political value. It will be run transparently by experienced professionals under real Congressional oversight. It will include checks and balances to prevent abuse by both the private sector and from political actors. It is a practical strategy for prosperity and a pragmatic vision that can be embraced outside of ideology or partisanship.

Ask leaders of the business community, and they will tell you that today, there's hundreds of billions in private capital just sitting on the sidelines, from pension funds, private equity and sovereign wealth funds -- money that could be made available for investment in U.S. infrastructure. Capital is fluid: if the United States does not make every effort to put these resources to use in our own country, it will flow to our competitors. With traditional funding methods like appropriations and municipal bonds squeezed by the economic slowdown, an American Infrastructure Bank would complement limited public investments by leveraging private resources to help get the job done. And by channeling large pools of new investment from private sources that don't invest in infrastructure in the U.S. today, the Bank will help solve our infrastructure deficit without straining our budget. We need to do more with less federal spending -- but most of all we need to get back in the game.

That's what this is all about. Because we know that in this age of global competition, if we don't act, we won't just stand still, and we won't just fall temporarily behind, we'll stay behind. That's not a future Kay and I are willing to accept, and that's why we've come together with Tom and Richard to instead make it a future that together we choose to shape. We're united because we still believe that America is great because we do great things. We're builders. It's part of our DNA. And we build no matter what -- through depression and recession, through surplus and deficit, through war and peace. Look at the 20th Century. It was an American century -- a century that in its early days saw America building the Panama Canal, a century in which America rebuilt Europe after a world war, a century in which America built an interstate highway system of 46,876 miles of asphalt and concrete that reshaped the landscape and our way of life, a century in which America leaped into space, a century in which America wired the entire planet for communications and commerce. That was the story of the 20th century; and together we will find the common ground to make the 21st Century another American century.

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