John Hennessy III,
P.E.
After Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were devastated by hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, numerous ACEC Member Firms were among the fi rst responders on the ground. One of the first Member Firms to arrive on-site following the hurricanes was Louis Berger. “Even several months after the storms, many rural communities in Puerto Rico still have no power,” says Tom Lewis, president of the U.S. Division of Louis Berger.
View this complete post...When the Hurricane Harvey federal disaster relief funding spigot finally opens in Washington, D.C., Texas cities and counties with recovery projects – some of which will be mega-million dollar projects – are hopeful their projects will be among those funded. And when the funding starts flowing, contracting opportunities will be abundant. Private-sector firms throughout the country willing to bring their experience and resources to the Texas Gulf Coast will be called on to contract with public-sector entities to help with the rebuilding of Texas.
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“They are natural hazards. They only become disasters where and how we have built our environments.” “And the current plan will be build it back the way it was. Rebuild it back to the past. Rebuild it back to fail again.” -Craig Fugate, Former FEMA Administrator Video by seeprogress on YouTube
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As Hurricane Harvey bore down on the Texas coast, Tony Miller, chief executive of a Silicon Valley startup, wondered how he could help. His company, Entanglement Technologies, can measure levels of air pollution in real time, important information for emergency responders and people living near storm-damaged refineries and chemical plants. On Aug. 31, Miller called Elena Craft, Environmental Defense Fund’s Texas-based senior health scientist, and the two quickly came up with a plan to monitor neighborhoods near industrial facilities in and around Houston. Miller was on the road the next day.
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Written by Mary Scott Nabers President and CEO, Strategic Partnerships Inc. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma made an indelible mark on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The back-to-back storms ravaged the Texas and Florida coasts in late August and early September and left behind a wide swath of damage and destruction that will take years to restore […]
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INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY RESEARCH
While headlines have reported declining oil, gas, and coal prices, those declines do not deter from the fact that U.S. energy resources are valuable to our domestic economic growth. The most recent government estimate of those benefits was a 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study, produced at the request of the House Budget Committee, which analyzed federal lease revenues that could be expected to arise from a proposal to open federal lands and waters to oil, gas, and coal extraction.
RE:FOCUS PARTNERS
Investing in resilience is complicated. Like healthcare, there are multiple strategies that can and should be combined to improve overall health. For example, there are things you can do regularly to ward off risks (preventative care), other options to address acute conditions (treatment or medical intervention), and finally actions you can take to ensure that illness doesn’t bankrupt you or those who depend on you (health and life insurance)…Strategies to protect communities from disasters follow a similar pattern. Projects to increase resilience—infrastructure upgrades or new protections—are designed to reduce the physical risks of damages. Once prevention is no longer an option, disaster response and recovery measures, including disaster aid and reconstruction funds, are designed to help the system recover and rebound back to health more quickly.
Infographic from Pepperdine University predicts the end of the “Made in China” era, and a return to U.S.-based manufacturing.
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TRANSPORTATION CONSTRUCTION COALITION
Federal transportation spending expands the capital stock of the US economy, drives the production and delivery of goods and services, and positively affects business and household incomes. It also enhances the transportation system’s operational capacity by reducing travel times and costs. This results in greater accessibility for individuals, households and businesses, more efficient delivery of goods and services, improved life styles and standards of living, and safer roadways.
Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 14
For a long time, the nation’s transportation policy escaped critical scrutiny. Not any longer. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) — hardly a partisan anti-Obama cabal —has published a hard-hitting but carefully balanced critique of the Administration’s handling of the federal transportation program. Authored by Rebecca Strauss, associate editor of CFR’s “Renewing America” policy briefs, the article singles out a series of failed policy initiatives, notably Obama’s signature high-speed rail project (“it has turned into an embarrassment”), proposals for a $10 billion infrastructure bank and a $50 billion “Fix-it-First” program (both ignored by Congress); and failure to submit to Congress a legislative proposal for a multi-year surface transportation program for the first five-and-a-half years of the presidency.
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