Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Clean Water, Better Broadband, Resilience, and Equity

As deliberations on an Infrastructure Package continue in Washington DC, the expert panel focuses on America’s needs for investment in clean water and wider access to broadband Internet service in states, cities, and counties.
This special briefing features a panel of experts, including Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark, New Jersey; Kathryn de Wit, project director of Broadband Access Initiative; Thomas Hazlett, Macaulay Endowed Chair in Economics at Clemson University; and Howard Neukrug, executive director of The Water Center at Penn.
Notable Quotes:
“We are also using this money for flood mitigation, rehab our water and waste pump stations, upgrade fire hydrants, to deal with resiliency. Hurricane Ida hit us very hard in New Jersey, and we had serious flooding in and around Newark and the North Jersey area.” Mayor Ras Baraka.
“What we ultimately found was that state programs were really successful by focusing on the ‘why?’ of broadband, and then on implementing inclusive and community-based approaches,” Kathryn de Wit.
“Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, in current dollars about $225B have gone out. These funds are awarded annually, and in recent years they have reached levels of about $10B,” Thomas Hazlett.
“The new goal of the industry is to become greenhouse gas neutral facilities, and that is a remarkable change from just ten years ago,” Howard Neukrug.
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Special Briefing is published by the Volcker Alliance, as part of its Public Finance initiatives, and Penn IUR. The views expressed on this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR.