COLUMBUS, Ohio — President Donald Trump’s administration will convene a meeting of at least 15 federal agencies today as a first governmentwide step toward crafting the president’s $1 trillion infrastructure initiative, a senior White House official said.
Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, will lead the meeting, which will focus on identifying new projects that would boost the economy; finding existing projects, such as the Keystone XL pipeline, that could be expedited; targeting policies, outdated rules and laws that could delay projects; and developing funding and financing options, the official said.
The meeting follows Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, when he said he wants to leverage public-private partnerships and public capital to upgrade crumbling roads, bridges, ports and other infrastructure. The official said that all funding options are currently on the table. Lawmakers and policy experts have floated ideas that include taxing corporate profits that are parked overseas and creating an infrastructure bank.
The official said that a proposal will be developed and presented to Trump, but the timing is uncertain.
Most U.S. infrastructure is owned and controlled by states and municipalities, so the federal government’s role is more regulatory. Trump has already issued an executive order to expedite environmental reviews and permitting for high-priority projects.
The National Governors Association provided to the White House a list of 428 priority projects from 49 states and territories on Feb. 8 that it had solicited from the states. How projects will be selected for funding has yet to be determined, the White House official said.
Governors from both political parties, interviewed at their annual winter meeting in Washington last weekend, said they expect to play a key role in those decisions.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s going to percolate up from the governors,” said Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and president of the National Governors Association. “They can’t get this done in Congress without us.”
Republican Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, a former member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, echoed McAuliffe’s concern. “It’s important to have that state input into what is a national priority,” she said.
Trump, meanwhile, has been building his team to work on the plan. The White House announced on Tuesday that DJ Gribbin will serve as a special assistant to the president for infrastructure policy, under Cohn. Gribbin, a former chief counsel for the Federal Highway Administration and general counsel for the U.S. Department of Transportation, has worked on public-private partnership deals for Macquarie Capital USA Inc.
During his speech to Congress, Trump called for “a new program of national rebuilding,” likening the initiative to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s construction of the interstate highway system across the U.S.
Lawmakers are anxious for details. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said it’s “time to put some flesh” on Trump’s proposal. “What’s missing is a real plan and the money,” DeFazio said after Trump’s speech on Tuesday.
Rep. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he’s met with Trump and his policy staff and told them there have to be projects in all states.
Democrats including DeFazio and even some Republicans have argued that trying to rely on the private sector alone won’t generate $1 trillion of investment or allow projects in all parts of the U.S.
Deals involving private investment require a revenue stream such as tolls, which aren’t popular or even practical in rural or thinly populated areas.
