In the meeting that took place at the White House with state and local officials, Trump disclosed his long-awaited vision for America’s new infrastructure plan. By finding outside resources and attracting additional local and state tax dollars and investments of the private sector, the Government is hoping to leverage 200 billion federal dollars and turn them into 1.5 trillion dollars. The main goal of this program is to build and rebuild efficient roads, highways, bridges, and airports.
“I have enclosed with this message my Administration’s framework for rebuilding infrastructure in America. Our Nation’s infrastructure is in an unacceptable state of disrepair, which damages our country’s competitiveness and our citizens’ quality of life” said president Trump’s message to Congress of the United States according to The White House.
The amount is 50% greater than the one he proposed during his election campaign, and he intends to accomplish it by encouraging the private sectors to participate in the program by creating public-private partnerships. This way, they accept potential risks of a project in order to receive payment for their engagement by means of user fees on the infrastructure.
Furthermore, the plan also addresses additional needs for improvement that directly impact American citizens, including rural infrastructure, water resources, energy, drinking and wastewater systems, waterways, public lands, veterans’ hospitals, and Brownfield and Superfund sites.
The White House administration states it wants to reduce expense and time of getting federal permits by combining the reviews conducted by various agencies into “one federal decision,” with only one federal agency controlling and evaluating a certain project.
How will the plan impact industries?
Architecture, engineering, and construction are some of the industries that have the greatest opportunities to benefit from the proposed plan from the white house via series of infrastructure investments. The largest companies that belong to those industries are the smartest place to start looking for major investment profits. These companies are either directly or indirectly related to the types of projects that may occur during Trump’s administration.
In terms of great demanding for infrastructure upgrading projects, the US Federal marketplace, currently, is the most promising one for the construction, architecture/engineering industries, investors, and contractors. This conclusion has been made considering the estimation of dollar amount necessary for the needs for investment that exceeds 5 trillion dollars.
President Trump was very positive and made it clear that his administration is determined to use infrastructure as a leverage to boost and keep the economy increasing. “Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit” said Trump in his first State of the Union meeting, on Tuesday, Jan 30, 2018.
Nevertheless, a great number of government contracts and federal business opportunities are probably going to privately-owned businesses. This way, competing for these government procurements, private contractors need to put on some extra efforts; especially, if you don’t find yourself listed in the report of the top government contractors released annually by the Federal Government.
However, for companies that have the skills required and the seriousness to win federal contracts, as well as have the resources to meet federal requirements chances to capture lucrative contracts are very high.
