Editor's note: In advance of the 2024 presidential election, The Chronicle is breaking down each candidate’s stance on priority issues, examining their platform and political history to keep voters in the Duke and Durham community informed. This week, we take a look at transportation and infrastructure:
During their respective 2016 and 2020 campaigns, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris promised to renew American infrastructure. This week, The Chronicle examines their policy records, their promises on the campaign trail and what a victory in November for either could mean for the nation’s infrastructure.
Why infrastructure matters
The last few years have seen dramatic changes in infrastructure development.
In March 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave infrastructure in the United States an overall grade of D+, calculating that a projected $4.59 trillion would have to be invested by 2025 to bring the score up to an “adequate” B-. The report also highlighted several costs of aging infrastructure, including decreased economic activity, wasted resources due to aging infrastructure being more resource-intensive and less efficient, and safety risks such as higher traffic fatalities and dams at risk of bursting.
Four years later, the ASCE released an updated report card, with grades ranging from a D- for transit to a B for rail. Most infrastructure categories received poor ratings, with roads receiving a D, airports a D+ and energy a C-. The association called for “big and bold action from Washington,” noting that progress had been “modest.”
Experts have long warned that while investment in the nation’s infrastructure appears expensive at face value, delaying the updates would prove an even costlier mistake as future repair costs promise to grow. High-quality infrastructure is vital to economic growth and resiliency as it enables trade, connects workers to their jobs, protects the country from climate change impacts and provides “millions of jobs.”
Overstretched infrastructure also threatens to hamper economic growth and competitiveness at a time when competition with China has taken center stage in American foreign policy. The Council of Economic Advisors noted that prior to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), public investment in American infrastructure as a share of gross domestic product had fallen by over 40% since the 1960s, and commuter traffic congestion alone cost the nation nearly $160 billion annually by 2017.
Experts advise that more investment will be needed in the future to fully update the nation’s infrastructure, although Republicans and Democrats disagree on how best to do so. While the GOP prefers public-private partnerships and greater private sector involvement, Democrats tend to back increased federal spending on infrastructure.
North Carolinian stances
Several studies have attempted to gauge North Carolinian voters’ opinions on pressing political issues by asking respondents to rank their top priority issues. But recent polling data for the state is somewhat inconclusive on the subject of transportation and infrastructure.
One poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in April reported 3% of N.C. voters viewing unlisted issues — including infrastructure — as the most urgent. But although the low score could be attributed to infrastructure representing a low priority to voters in the state, it could also be a consequence of the survey’s methodology, which omitted infrastructure as a primary option.
Nevertheless, the issue remains on some N.C. residents’ minds, with access to certain types of infrastructure such as clean water and high-speed internet access emerging as possibly influential factors come November.
Kamala Harris
When Harris first ran for president, her 2020 campaign included a promise to improve infrastructure with $1 trillion in new spending, including $385 billion for transportation infrastructure, $250 billion for clean water access, $100 billion for school repairs and $80 billion for expanding broadband.
Harris’ 2020 platform also featured “transportation, energy and water infrastructure” as part of a $10 trillion climate plan, which included spending for clean energy generation and storage.
During the 2020 election, the Biden-Harris ticket campaigned on a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that aimed for carbon-free power generation by 2035, encouraged the adoption of electric trains, promoted EV production and incentivized building housing more resistant to extreme weather conditions.
Since taking office, investment in infrastructure has become a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s policy agenda, in large part due to the IIJA.
Signed into law by Biden in November 2021, the IIJA was intended to act as a long-term overhaul of national infrastructure. Also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, its provisions include repairing aging and damaged bridges, modernizing AMTRAK’s Northeast Corridor and building a nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations, among other investments.
The IIJA incorporated much of the Biden-Harris administration’s campaign priorities, including funding to replace lead pipes, $7.5 billion for construction of a 500,000-charger national electric vehicle (EV) charging station network, $27.6 billion for improving the electric grid and reducing AMTRAK’s long-standing project backlog.
The $1.2 trillion law also includes spending to increase access to clean water, expand high-speed broadband, assist governments looking to purchase electric vehicles and expand domestic battery manufacturing and recycling.
The law’s implementation is expected to take years. Only a fraction of funding announced — around $454 billion — had been spent as of May, accounting for over 56,000 infrastructure projects nationwide.
As of May, $9.4 billion from the IIJA had been announced for 512 projects in North Carolina, including $633 million for clean water, $109 million for EV charging networks, $142 million for broadband expansion and $1 billion to build a high-speed rail line from Raleigh to Richmond.
Additional funds are set to be appropriated for North Carolina infrastructure projects in 2025 and 2026. According to the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, the state could receive a total of $7.2 billion for highway repair, $457 million for bridges, $911 million for public transit and $460 million for airports.
Although Harris has not released a standalone position on infrastructure, she has been a prominent voice in the Biden administration promoting the IIJA and the administration’s “investing in America” agenda across the country. She has advocated for the “right … to clean water” and touted the millions of jobs created through the law, many of which are “good-paying union jobs.”
Historically, Harris’ stance on energy infrastructure stands to the left of Biden’s, having cosponsored the Green New Deal while in the Senate in 2019 and supported a fracking ban during her 2020 campaign — two policies Biden stopped short of endorsing. Harris has since walked back her position, with her campaign saying in late July that she will not ban fracking if elected president.
Donald Trump
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump made rebuilding infrastructure a key pledge, promising to spend between $800 billion and $1 trillion on repairing crumbling transportation networks and facilities — double the $500 billion proposed by his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.
While in the White House, Trump frequently lobbied Congress to pass an infrastructure package. He held multiple “infrastructure weeks” meant to concert federal efforts and drum up enthusiasm for a sweeping bipartisan plan, but the phrase became a running joke in Washington after Trump’s vision for infrastructure investment failed to materialize.
In February 2018, the then-president unveiled a $1.5 trillion plan that ran into opposition from congressional Democrats even before its release. $200 billion would have been appropriated by the federal government with the remaining spending coming from the private sector and state and local governments, though the federal government could not guarantee this additional funding.
Independent analysts criticized Trump’s plan, stating that it would fall short by $1 trillion due to its reliance on these public-private partnerships.
Senate Democrats later released their own $1 trillion infrastructure plan in March 2018 to counter Trump’s, arguing it would “create many more jobs” and “build many more projects.” Neither ultimately passed.
Just over a year later, congressional Democrats led by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, announced they had reached a $2 trillion deal with Trump that would invest in the nation’s roads, broadband network, water repairs and bridges. By mid-June, though, the deal crumbled while still in its initial stages.
Although discussions about another $1 trillion package arose following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the attempt failed after Senate Republicans voiced opposition.
Now seeking a return to the Oval Office, Trump’s infrastructure platform centers mainly around “unleash[ing] American energy” and investing in domestic manufacturing. The Republican nominee has also promised to cut significant spending programs created by the Biden administration.
Thus far, the former president has promised to build “Freedom Cities” with monuments to “true American heroes,” to get “rid of ugly buildings” and “make cities and towns more livable,” though his platform does not outline any specific details on how to do so.
He has also pledged to restore presidential impoundment authority, which allows presidents to block funds previously appropriated by Congress. The controversial power was curtailed by Congress in 1974 under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act.
According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump’s platform suggests he would attempt to bar funding appropriated by Congress by challenging the law’s constitutionality. If such power is restored, the CRFB writes, Trump would likely bar funding for projects covered by the IIJA or repeal the law altogether to prevent appropriated money from being spent.
Other candidates
While independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not released a transportation policy agenda, his platform advocates for a “free-market approach” to energy infrastructure that would significantly reduce federal subsidies to energy corporations. He advocates for “upgrading and enhancing” the national power grid, as well as investing in wind, solar and EV battery storage technology.
Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver has not released a policy agenda on transportation and infrastructure, though his platform does advocate for ending the Transportation Security Administration, which he charges with “routinely violat[ing Americans’] civil liberties.” In the aftermath of the July 19 CrowdStrike outage, Oliver released a July 26 statement in favor of combatting “real vulnerability and pain points across our transportation and supply-chain infrastructure.”
In the economic justice branch of Cornel West’s platform, the independent candidate advocates for “rejuvenat[ing American] infrastructure” through the development of “green reconstruction projects.” His transportation and infrastructure agenda remains otherwise unclear.
Prospective Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s platform promotes not-for-profit ownership of all utilities, free high-speed internet across the nation, a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2035, democratic public ownership of all railway networks and the construction of a coast-to-coast high-speed rail system.
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Samanyu Gangappa is a Trinity sophomore and local/national news editor for the news department.