Making The Grade group presents six-point plan to rebuild Americas infrastructure

Washington, D.C. — Experts from 45 organizations, including corporations, professional organizations, think tanks, financial advisors, and academic institutions, collaborated on a new report, released Friday, June 27, that outlines ways that the federal government, industry, and other stakeholders can work together to solve the crisis of the failing state of U.S. infrastructure. Titled "Making The Grade,” the report presents a six-point plan with ideas to regain America's infrastructure leadership and revive the country’s global competitiveness.

The report's name is intended as a rallying cry in response to last year's quadrennial report card by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which gave America's overall infrastructure a D+ grade. The ASCE estimates that $3.6 trillion must be invested by 2020 to make critically needed upgrades and expansions of national infrastructure — and avoid trillions of dollars in lost business sales, exports, disposable income and GDP.

The report's six-point recommendations include:

1) Making infrastructure a cabinet-level priority;

2) Forming U.S. infrastructure regions;

3) Establishing a national infrastructure bank;

4) Selling "opportunity" bonds;

5) Creating a national infrastructure index; and

6) Engaging the American people to build support for the importance of infrastructure policy.

According to the report, these recommendations apply modern tools, technologies, approaches, and fresh thinking to offer a new vision and path forward for the way U.S. infrastructure should be planned, financed, designed and built.

Download the complete report here. 

The 45 organizations involved expect to drive the policy recommendations forward through continued public advocacy, wider industry dialogue, and engagement with lawmakers during the coming months and years.