Senator Coons went to the floor again Thursday to trumpet the national infrastructure provisions in the Rebuild America Jobs Act. Chris is also a cosponsor of the BUILD Act, a standalone billed introduced earlier this year that would create the American Infrastructure Finance Authority to bring more private investment into infrastructure efforts.
With America facing a need for more than $2.2 trillion in infrastructure investments over the next five years, an infrastructure bank would help struggling state and local government to find the financing they need to repair their roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, railways, water and sewer systems.
“In my view, we have to get creative,” Senator Coons said. “We have to bring in more resources than are currently on the field. And especially now, especially in this country, I think we have to be smart about how we spend our funds. The Rebuild America Jobs Act, to which I hope we will be moving later this afternoon, would put $50 billion directly into infrastructure but $10 billion as a down payment into making possible this new infrastructure bank. Seed money that makes possible loans and loan guarantees, not grants, for a wide range of infrastructure projects including energy, water and critically needed transportation.”
Watch the speech above, or click here to read the transcript.