This Week Is Infrastructure Week

In the lead-up to the May 31 sunset date for federal highway funding, this week is “Infrastructure Week”—a week for scholars, advocates, and policy makers to debate needed long-term technologies, policies, and reforms on a wide range of infrastructure topics. Competitive Enterprise Institute transportation policy expert Marc Scribner has put forward specific reforms focused on infrastructure such as user-based revenue collection and expanded debt financing.

“Government monopolies in infrastructure are misallocating resources and increasingly failing to serve their ‘customers’”, said Scribner. “Instead, lawmakers need to adopt policies that allow for improved transportation infrastructure provision. For the nation’s highways and airports, the most important reform right now is allowing modern user-based revenue collection and increasing debt financing, while reducing tax-funded federal grants. The improvements include all-electronic tolling, expanding the use of private activity bonds, and a modernized airport passenger facility charge, and would let consumers directly support services they actually use.”

For more on CEI’s work on transportation policy, see CEI’s agenda for Congress, Free to Prosper.

Also note that CEI president Lawson Bader is speaking on a Thursday panel on the economic impact of airports in America and what reforms are needed. > Thinking Beyond the Runway: A Look at How Airports Help Our Economy Take Off