http://enr.construction.com/people/interviews/2009/1207-EdwardRendell.asp

(EXCERPT) As President Obama prepares to unveil a proposed jobs bill, a follow-up to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell (D), who, with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger [R] and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg(I), co-chairs the pro-infrastructure group Building America's Future, is seeking to see the White House boost the proposal's public works funding to $100 billion.

In a Dec. 7 interview with ENR in Bloomberg's Washington office, Rendell proposed to obtain the additional infrastructure money through a transfer to the Highway Trust Fund from the general fund. It would in effect be an early installment of the eventual multi-year successor to the current highway-transit authorization measure, SAFETEA-LU. The general fund payment would be reimbursed when the reauthorization is enacted. Rendell also is pushing hard to see the jobs bill include an infrastructure bank plan.

An edited version of the interview follows:

What brings you to Washington, Governor?

[BAF] thought it was very very important to try to influence the jobs bill....Really what BAF's main thrust is, we think that there needs to be a long-term significant infrastructure revitalization and build-out bill for the country. And I think that's, in my judgment, a decade-long project....

[Besides reauthorizing SAFETEA-LU ] it includes much more than just transportation. It includes water and wastewater, it includes school construction, it includes dams and levees, it includes smart grid and energy projects.

We want to be heard and we want the [policy] reform agenda to be encompassed in that long-term bill. But the short-term bill has a great capacity to create jobs and we believe infrastructure is the best way to create jobs in the sectors that have been most hard hit during the recession--construction and manufacturing.....And we believe that infrastructure can help bolster those sectors dramatically."

Our message to both the Congress and the White House has been: Make sure that there's substantial infrastructure spending in there.

The first question that everyone asks is: Well, if we do it, can the infrastructure dollars be spent quickly enough to have an impact?

[He cites the recent AASHTO/APTA report that nearly $70 billion in projects are ready to go.] But that was just transportation. If you include water and wastewater and school construction, then we're easily at the $100-billion mark.

So that's number one. Number two: Is infrastructure spending really that impactful to the economy? And I think the answer to that is: absolutely, yes.

...