Conservative Musings

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Showing posts with label infrastructure. Show all posts

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Let The Infrastructure Improvements Start!

Trump to Kick Off Infrastructure Drive With Air-Traffic Proposal

Mark Niquette

and

Alan Levin

June 3, 2017, 2:06 PM EDT

President has events planned in Washington, Ohio and Kentucky
Air-traffic system would be run by non-profit corporation

Donald Trump next week will send Congress a proposal to hand over control of the U.S. air-traffic control system to a non-profit corporation, part of a week-long push for his infrastructure plan, said Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser.

Gary Cohn

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The proposal, which Trump will release on Monday in an Oval Office ceremony and Rose Garden event, will kick off what Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, called the formal launch of the president’s infrastructure initiative. Later in the week, Trump plans to travel to Ohio and Kentucky to garner support for his plan -- a key campaign promise -- to channel $1 trillion into the nation’s roads, bridges, inland waterways and other public facilities.

“We know that in many of these areas we’re falling behind, and the falling behind is affecting economic growth in the United States,’’ Cohn said on a call with reporters. “The president wants to fix the problems, and he doesn’t want to push these liabilities into the future.’’

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Trump’s actions come after an initial outline of his infrastructure plan and his proposed budget sparked criticism from state and city leaders of both parties, who said they’d be left with too much of the financial burden.

For the $1 trillion plan, Trump has proposed $200 billion in federal spending on “targeted federal investments’’ in rural areas and for projects with regional or national priority, as well as for “self-help” incentives to spur states, localities and private entities to generate more of their own revenues for projects.

Shuster’s Plan

Congressional Democrats, who Trump is counting on to help get his plan through Congress, have also blasted the plan – as well as proposed 2018 budget cuts to transportation programs – and have said that significantly more direct federal funding is needed. The White House has said that it aims to have a full legislative plan for the initiative by the third quarter, although a White House official said Friday that the timing is “still open.”

Trump’s air-traffic control plan will be based largely on legislation introduced in 2016 by Representative Bill Shuster, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, according to a White House official. The official said there would be some changes from Shuster’s plan, which stalled in the face of opposition in the Senate and among some leading House Republicans, but declined to say what they would be.

While providing few specifics, Cohn said Trump’s proposal would create a new user fee to replace current taxes on aviation fuel and airline tickets. He also said there would be unspecified protections for rural airports; critics of the air-traffic plan have said it would jeopardize small airports by giving too much power to airlines and large hubs.

NextGen or Not?

While the Federal Aviation Administration is already years into a technology upgrade known as NextGen, the efficiency improvements it promises can be done more effectively outside of direct government control, say backers of the White House plan. The FAA would continue to monitor safety and write air-traffic regulations.

Most large airlines and some former high-level FAA managers favor the privatization plan, which is opposed by many Democratic lawmakers and private-aviation groups. The opponents say the current system works well, and they fear the transition would be a setback to the introduction of new technology.

About 60 countries, including Canada and the U.K., have gone to similar semi-private management of their air-traffic networks.

On June 7, Trump is scheduled to visit Ohio and Kentucky, including a stop at a location on the Ohio River that forms the border between the two states, to highlight the locks, dams and other elements of the inland waterways system crucial for moving agricultural products and other goods, Cohn said. The key principles of Trump’s plan, released May 23, called for a fee on commercial navigation to finance future capital investments.

On June 8, Trump will host governors and mayors at the White House for a bipartisan listening session, Cohn said.

Trump plans to finish the week at the Department of Transportation offices in Washington to discuss its efforts to streamline the regulatory approval and permitting process for road and rail projects, Cohn said. Approvals that can take 10 years should be done in two years or less, he added, and the White House has convened a task force of 16 agencies to examine policies, rules and laws that should be targeted to speed up the process.

Monday, February 20, 2017

US Infrastructure Is Falling Apart

Traffic Jam Los Angeles - Photo by Prayitno

Trump complains that he ‘inherited a mess’ in rant against media

With his White House battling multiple crises, Trump blames ‘dishonest media’ for not giving him proper credit.

An exasperated President Donald Trump on Thursday gathered the media in the White House's East Room for a dressing down in which he claimed that he "inherited a mess" and that the "dishonest media" is not giving his presidency the credit it deserves.

“I'm making this presentation directly to the American people with the media present, which is an honor to have you, this morning, because many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth. And will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve,” Trump said during a news conference that was billed as a rollout for his new labor secretary pick.

But after he quickly announced that Alexander Acosta is his new nominee, Trump launched into a rant. “The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what's going on because the press honestly is out of control," he said.

“I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country," Trump added.

From there, the president launched into a laundry list of issues on which he has claimed victories or at least progress, including border security, combating the Islamic State, job creation and a reduction of government regulation.

“In each of these actions I'm keeping my promises to the American people. These are campaign promises,” Trump said. He said the steps he’s taken in the four weeks since he was sworn in should surprise nobody, especially in the media.

“In other words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they are not happy about it, for whatever reason,” he said. “But a lot of people are happy about it.”

Another Obama Success?

11 Deeply Alarming Facts About America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

By Michael Snyder, on February 16th, 2017

No matter what your particular political perspective is, if there is one thing that virtually everyone in the United States can agree upon it is the fact that America’s infrastructure is crumbling. Previous generations of Americans conquered an entire continent and erected the greatest system of infrastructure that the world had ever seen, but now thousands upon thousands of those extremely impressive infrastructure projects are decades old and in desperate need of repair or upgrading. The near catastrophic failure of the Oroville Dam is a perfect example of what I am talking about. We should be constructing the next generation of infrastructure projects for our children and our grandchildren, but instead we are in such sorry shape that we can’t even keep up with the maintenance and upkeep on the great infrastructure projects that have been handed down to us.

Once upon a time nobody on the entire planet could even come close to matching our infrastructure, but now our crumbling infrastructure has become a joke to much of the rest of the industrialized world. Sadly, this is just another symptom of our long-term economic collapse. We simply are not able to put as much of our money toward infrastructure as previous generations of Americans did, and as a result we have a giant mess on our hands. The following are 11 deeply alarming facts about America’s crumbling infrastructure…

#1 According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, nearly 56,000 bridges in the United States are currently “structurally deficient”. What makes that number even more chilling is the fact that vehicles cross those bridges a total of 185 million times a day.

#2 More than one out of every four bridges in the United States is more than 50 years old and “have never had major reconstruction work”.

#3 America does not have a single airport that is considered to be in the top 25 in the world.

#4 The average age of America’s dams is now 52 years.

#5 Not too long ago, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the condition of America’s dams a “D” grade.

#6 Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers said that the condition of America’s infrastructure as a whole only gets a “D+” grade.

#7 Congestion on our highways costs Americans approximately 101 billion dollars a year in wasted fuel and time.

#8 According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, over two-thirds of our roads are “in dire need of repair or upgrades”.

#9 In order to completely fix all of our roads and bridges, it would take approximately 808 billion dollars.

#10 Federal spending on infrastructure has decreased by 9 percent over the past decade.

#11 According to Bloomberg, it is being projected “that by 2025, shortfalls in infrastructure investment will subtract as much as $3.9 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product.”

The quality of our infrastructure affects all of our lives every single day. For instance, we all simply take it for granted that safe, clean drinking water is going to come out of our taps, but recent events have shown that is not necessarily always going to be the case.

Just ask the residents of Flint, Michigan.

Water pipes, sewer systems and water treatment facilities all over the nation are aging and are in desperate need of repair. Of course the exact same thing could be said about our power grid. It was never intended to handle so many people, and on the hottest days of the summer the strain on the grid is very evident.

And of course the power grid is exceedingly vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse event, and this is something that I covered in my book on getting prepared. It has been projected that it would only cost a couple billion dollars to harden the grid against an EMP event, but our politicians refuse to spend the money.

Meanwhile, President Trump is completely correct when he says that our airports look like something that you would see in a third world country. Most of our airports are at least several decades old, and they are definitely showing their age.

But things are even worse when you look at other systems of mass transit around the country. While other nations such as Japan and China are investing huge amounts of money into high speed rail, we are doing next to nothing even though what we currently have is absolutely pathetic.

I could go on and talk about our ports, schools, waterways, parks, etc. but I think that you get the point.

President Trump’s instincts are right on the money when he says that he wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure. Without a doubt, we desperately need it.

The problem is that we are flat broke.

We are 20 trillion dollars in debt, and we are adding more than a trillion dollars to that total every year.

So where are we going to get the money?

It is easy for liberals to say that we should raise taxes, but how much more are you going to squeeze out of U.S. consumers? Two-thirds of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, and we just learned that U.S. household debt has risen to a grand total of 12.58 trillion dollars.

Once upon a time, America was the wealthiest nation on the entire planet and we could afford to construct bold, new infrastructure projects from sea to shining sea.

But today we have the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and we can’t even afford to repair what we already have.

When I speak of our long-term economic collapse, this is precisely the sort of thing that I am talking about. We have clearly been in decline for a very long time, and anyone that would suggest otherwise is simply not being honest with you.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Where Is Obama? Texas City Has For Ten Days Been Under A Boil Water Order, Why Won't President Visit This City. Could It Be That It Is Only 4% Black?

Corpus Christi Water Crisis: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Published 3:40 pm EDT, May 22, 2016 Updated 4:59 pm EDT, May 22, 2016 4 Comments By Stephanie Dube Dwilson

Corpus Christi has had undrinkable water for over week, and now Erin Brockovich is sending someone to try to help. (Flickr/Terry Ross)

Corpus Christi, Texas has been under a water boil advisory for over a week now and there’s no end in sight. Residents and business owners are growing increasingly angry and frustrated as expenses are piling up. Now, Erin Brockovich is sending an expert to look into why the city’s water still isn’t safe to drink. Meanwhile, the city manager, rather than facing the issue head on, resigned in the middle of the crisis. How will Corpus Christi, now left without a manager and still struggling to get its water safety issues under control, get things back on track? When will the water be safe to drink again?

Here’s what you need to know.

1. Corpus Christi Has Been Under a Boil Water Advisory For Over a Week, Prompting Erin Brockovich to Send Her Partner to Help

Residents in Corpus Christi have to boil their city water before they can use it. They have had to do this for over a week now. (Flickr/Scott Akerman)

Residents of Corpus Christi haven’t been able to drink or use the city water straight from the tap since Friday, May 13. They’re under a strict boil water advisory, requiring them to boil all water for one minute before drinking it and to take extensive precautions even when bathing.

It’s a huge headache and a big expense, not to mention a source of worry and concern for Corpus Christi citizens.

The boil advisory started when water in several parts of the city was tested and came backshowing low chlorine levels. Although there was no E. coli found in the water, the disinfectant in the city’s water was below safe levels. The entire city was placed under a boil advisory. The city is now using a new disinfectant called “free chlorine” to stabilize the water. This could cause the water to smell like a swimming pool and be discolored and cloudy.

Environmentalist Erin Brockovich has said that her partner is planning to travel to Corpus Christi and meet with the city staff to help figure out how to fix the ongoing water problem.

The city has said that the water boil advisory could be lifted no earlier than Tuesday, after the new disinfectant makes its way through the entire city.

Residents are fed up with the constant water problems. Yvonne Perry, a Corpus Christi resident, told Heavy:

The leaders of this community for the last 20 years have worked hard at personal agenda vs much needed infrastructure. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have federal protection against poor water quality like we do air.

The water boil advisory extends beyond just drinking water. Corpus Christi residents also shouldn’t use tap water for brushing their teeth, washing their hands while preparing food, or washing dishes (unless the dishes are rinsed for a minute in a bleach solution). When taking baths or showers, residents can use the water “if absolutely necessary,” but should be careful not to swallow the water or get it in their eyes or nose. Pets should only be given bottled or boiled and cooled water, too.

2. The Water Problem Stems From a Cheaper Disinfectant that ‘Bypasses the Rule,’ Along with Decaying Water Pipes

Brockovich spoke with KRIS-TV and told them that the biggest issue was the ammonia in Corpus Christi’s water system, which is a cheap way to pass federal regulations:

It bypasses the rule and they’re cheating the system. And in turn, you’re cheating all of those people in Corpus Christi out of their right to clean water.”

Ammonia may be cheap to use, but it’s trouble in the long run. It suppresses and bonds with chlorine in the water, she said, which produces hazardous material and can rust the city’s cast iron pipes:

(The city is) creating this caustic, toxic fallout that your consumers are now having to drink.”

Another problem plaguing Corpus Christi’s water supply is the state of the pipe infrastructure itself, Mark Van Vleck, assistant city manager, told KRIS-TV. He said the pipes were an even bigger problem and needed funding and fixing.

This fits with a theory that deferred maintenance and replacement is at the heart of the problem. Dan Biles, former Corpus Christi assistant city manager, told The Corpus Christi Caller Times that the city historically doesn’t replace anything at a fast enough pace to keep up with failure rates:

You’re running on a system strung together and one mistake or problem can be the downfall of the system.”

The city has 225 miles of cast iron pipes, most of which were built between 1950 and 1959. Van Vleck, assistant city manager, said that many of those pipes are badly decayed and slow down water flow, which adds to the disinfectant problem. In May 2015, Corpus Christi adopted a plan to finally begin replacing the old pipes, but it will cost about $60 million total. The city only allocated $2.3 million annually to the replacements.

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3. The Corpus Christi City Manager Resigned in the Middle of the Water Crisis

A view of downtown Corpus Christi. The city’s manager resigned in the middle of the water crisis without resolving it. (Dawn Perry)

This is the city’s third water boil notice in 10 months. Ron Olson, the city manager since March 2011, resigned just a few days after the water boil notice started, saying that he had to be held accountable.

But he also left without fixing the latest problem.

In the city’s press release about Olson’s departure, Olson noted that he wasn’t leaving just because of the water problems. “This is something I have been thinking about for a long time and I feel now is the right time,” he said in his resignation letter.

Although the water problem is the city’s most obvious issue right now, Corpus Christi has been having a lot of problems for quite a while, and residents are tired of it. Poor upkeep of city parks and a “long-running street maintenance crisis,” as described by the Caller Times, are just two of those issues.

Dawn Perry, a Corpus Christi resident, told Heavy that the water problems are only the tip of the iceberg:

All of our streets are dilapidated and not being repaired … city land (parks included) are never mowed, I mean the list goes on and on. The water is of course the major issue… Where are our tax dollars being spent? The city isn’t doing basic maintenance for the standard upkeep of our city. Why? And no one is being held accountable. Why is the director of the water department still employed today? He is obviously not doing his job. Who is going to be held accountable?!”

Residents want more people held accountable for these issues. In fact, a petition is circulating demanding new management of the city’s water department. You can sign it here.

4. Local Businesses Are Facing Increased Expenses That Are Tough to Cover

No one is feeling this happy about Corpus Christi’s water right now. (Alicia Wilton)

The water boil advisory is hitting everyone hard, but local businesses are especially suffering. Restaurants are taking the toughest hit. They can no longer serve fountain drinks and recipes take longer to prepare with the need to boil water before it’s used. On a Reddit thread about the water boil, employees of local restaurants talked about some of their issues. One person said they couldn’t steam their buns and the manager had to buy cans of soda to sell, since they couldn’t serve most of the drinks on their menu.

Samantha Person, owner of the Cattery Cat Shelter in Corpus Christi, told Heavy that animal shelters are facing an increase in cost from having to switch to bottled water. The city has said that pets should be given bottled or boiled water, but most shelters aren’t equipped to boil all the water their cats, dogs, and other animals drink.

“We didn’t have a way to boil water at the shelter,” Person said. “So we don’t have a choice and have to buy water. This takes more time and, of course, the cost adds up. We’ve easily spent over $100 plus staff time to purchase water, and we may have over a week to go! $100 probably doesn’t sound like much, but every dollar counts for us.”

The water boil advisory is also impacting schools and jails, The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported. The Corpus Christi Independent School District has spent $63,000 on bottled water since the boil advisory went into effect, averaging out to nearly $15,000 a day. As of Friday, the Nueces County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center had spent more than $6,700 on bottled water.

Some residents are so fed up that they’re starting to refer to Flint, Michigan as their “sister city”:

And others are just calling Corpus Christi hell:

Or comparing it to third-world regions:

Some residents have taken to using products such as a chlorine-removing shower filter that can be purchased at stores like Home Depot. This won’t make your water safe to drink, but when the chlorine moves into your lines, it can help reduce the smell and skin irritations from showering in water with higher levels of chlorine disinfectant.

5. Corpus Christi Has Had Decades of Water Problems, Including the Water Turning Pink or Purple

Corpus Christi is known as the “Sparkling City by the Sea.” But residents are worried that the sparkling water might turn pink again. (Yvonne Perry)

In addition to the three water boil advisories in the last 10 months, the city has had numerous other water crises over the course of decades. In July 2015, a boil notice was issued after E. coli was found in the water.

In 2007, the Caller Times ran an article informing residents in a poetic format: “It may be pink and stink, but water safe to drink.” The article explained that because city officials switched from a chlorine/ammonia blend to a straight chlorine disinfectant to resolve problems, residents would see their water looking red or pink and have a strong chlorine smell, but it was still OK to drink.

The same thing happened in 1996, when residents were warned that their water had turned “shades of pink and purple” but it was still safe to drink. That time, the color was caused because a filtration plant accidentally released too much potassium permanganate. The chemical had been used to offset changes in the water’s taste and smell. At the time, the city mayor, Mary Rhodes, went on TV and drank an 8 ounce glass of pink water to prove that it was safe. Rhodes died in 1997 from cancer at the age of 49. Her cancer was apparently unrelated to the water, but some residents at the time still felt uncomfortable about the whole thing.

With the addition of more chlorine in the city water supply, residents will likely be dealing with smelly water that reminds them of a swimming pool all over again. They just hope that this time around, the third time will really be a charm and the city will fix the problem so they don’t have to deal with this again in a few months.

Conservative Musings

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Saturday, June 3, 2017

Let The Infrastructure Improvements Start!

Trump to Kick Off Infrastructure Drive With Air-Traffic Proposal

Shuster’s Plan

NextGen or Not?

Monday, February 20, 2017

US Infrastructure Is Falling Apart

11 Deeply Alarming Facts About America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

Trump complains that he ‘inherited a mess’ in rant against media

Another Obama Success?

11 Deeply Alarming Facts About America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

Monday, May 23, 2016

Where Is Obama? Texas City Has For Ten Days Been Under A Boil Water Order, Why Won't President Visit This City. Could It Be That It Is Only 4% Black?

Corpus Christi Water Crisis: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

1. Corpus Christi Has Been Under a Boil Water Advisory For Over a Week, Prompting Erin Brockovich to Send Her Partner to Help

2. The Water Problem Stems From a Cheaper Disinfectant that ‘Bypasses the Rule,’ Along with Decaying Water Pipes

Were Bernie Sanders Supporters Violent at the Nevada Convention?

3. The Corpus Christi City Manager Resigned in the Middle of the Water Crisis

4. Local Businesses Are Facing Increased Expenses That Are Tough to Cover

Water boil advisory leads to 'caffeine crisis' for coffee lovers

5. Corpus Christi Has Had Decades of Water Problems, Including the Water Turning Pink or Purple

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