Rogers / 3 Senator Reutter

S.S&S____

A BILL
To provide $1.7 trillion needed for transport infrastructure.
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This act may be cited as the Structured America Act of 2017.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
Congress hereby finds and declares that,
1) Federal investment in infrastructure has dropped by half during the past three decades, from 1 percent to 0.5
percent of GDP, leaving more of the responsibility and finances to state and local governments.
2) The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the U.S. needs to spend $1.7 trillion by 2020 just to
upgrade our surface transportation of roads, bridges and rail. Currently we are on track to spend just $877
billion.
3) American Society for Civil Engineers gave the U.S. infrastructure a D+ in its annual report card.
4) One example: in 2010, Americans spent a total of 4.8 billion hours stuck in traffic, largely due to congestion
and poor design, wasting 1.9 billion gallons of fuel, at a total cost of $101 billion.
5)An effort to increase infrastructure investment by $250 billion annually over seven years would likely
increase productivity growth by 0.3 percent annuallya boost more than half as large as the productivity
acceleration in the U.S. economy between 1995 and 2005.
6) Each dollar of federal highway grants received by a state raises that states annual economic output by at
least two dollars, a relatively large multiplier.
7) When transport systems are deficient in terms of capacity or reliability, they can have an economic cost such
as reduced or missed opportunities and lower quality of life.
8)The United States has fallen well behind many members of the European Union, Canada, and Asian countries
such as Singapore, Japan, and South Korea in the overall quality of its infrastructure. We rank 18th in railroads,
19th in ports, 20th in roads, and 30th in airports.
9) Current infrastructure requires more investmentfor instance, one in nine U.S. bridges are structurally
deficient.
SECTION 3. STATUTORY LANGUAGE
A) The Structured America Act shall ensure a grade of a B or better on the American Society for Civil
Engineers annual report card. This will ensure safe and efficient railways, bridges, ports, airports, roads, and
highways. All transport infrastructure shall be monitored regularly and repaired as necessary. The general public
must have an increased role in monitoring the quality of our infrastructure
B) Food subsidy programs and food stamps shall be sent back to state and local governments, therefore the state
and local governments are able to decide how much is spent. Agricultural subsidy programs shall be eliminated
entirely. This frees about 140 billion dollars to be spent on the Structured America Act. Funding of Homeland
Security shall be reduced from 791 billion to 675 billion, focusing on reforming and dismissing out-dated antiterrorist programs.
C) Transport Infrastructure defines as the following: Transport infrastructure refers to the framework that
supports our transport system. Any party that neglects to monitor and/or repair railways, bridges, ports, airports,
roads, and highways shall be fined. Severity of the fine shall depend on the severity of damage and any accident
involved.