John Hennessy III,
P.E.
With record-breaking storms, aging infrastructure, and growing support for federal reform, it’s more crucial than ever to ensure the U.S. is ready to withstand flooding. Recently, a bipartisan group of more than 250 elected officials signed the Flood-Ready Infrastructure Statement of Principles, which encourages the federal government to improve building requirements, enhance the use of natural defenses, and reduce unsustainable development in risky areas.
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PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
Living shorelines, which use a range of natural stabilization techniques commonly involving the strategic placement of plants, stone, sand, and other materials, provide a proven and cost-effective alternative to structural approaches. These nature-based solutions prevent erosion along estuarine coasts, bays, sheltered coastlines, and rivers while maintaining the land-and-water connection important to sustaining habitats for fish and wildlife, filtering pollutants from stormwater runoff, and protecting land from wave energy.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
Cities in the United States play a substantial role in funding critical infrastructure with investments in capital projects such as roads, bridges, schools, and libraries. For example, all local governments accounted for 35 percent of total highway and transit spending from 2008 through 2012. To pay for these projects, cities often sell bonds on the municipal market.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
Distributed energy resources allow electricity to be generated closer to where it is used, protecting businesses and institutions from unexpected outages caused by natural disasters and other disruptions. The U.S. national laboratories as well as public-private partnerships provide financial resources and access to research facilities to foster innovations to modernize the power sector from a 100-year-old centralized system to one that incorporates disparate clean technologies such as microgrids, batteries, and energy smart tools. These investments and the resulting new products and capabilities decrease costs, improve grid reliability, reduce emissions, and offer consumers more options.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
With the temporary increase in funding for the federal highway trust fund set to run out by May 2015, states and localities are again facing the prospect that shortfalls in the fund could delay or reduce the federal money they rely on for transportation projects. As they wait to see what federal policymakers will do, many states are taking action to make their own transportation funding more sustainable. These efforts highlight the major challenges that all levels of government face in maintaining investments in highways and transit systems—problems that will require policymakers to make difficult choices in the years ahead.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
Michigan’s 2008 Clean, Renewable, and Efficient Energy Act established a renewable portfolio standard, which requires electricity providers to generate 10 percent of their sales from renewable resources by 2015. The standard also allows electric utilities to use energy efficiency and other advanced energy technologies to fulfill part of the requirement.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
This analysis examines the role that each level of government plays in paying for highway and transit infrastructure (referred to here as “surface transportation” or “transportation”), the key problems facing this multilayered system of funding, and their causes. In addition, it identifies central principles that policymakers need to consider as they weigh options and consider solutions.
PEW ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP
Over the last half decade, the clean energy economy has emerged around the world as a major new opportunity for investment, manufacturing, jobs and environmental protection. This report explores scenarios for the dynamic expansion of electricity from renewable resources over the next decade…While renewable energy asset financing is projected to rise in the United States under all scenarios, the United States would benefit from strong clean energy policies. If enhanced national clean energy policies were enacted, investment would ramp up to $53 billion annually by 2020—a rise of 237 percent over 2010 levels.
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