Congress

Government AffairsUpdate for June 25, 2021

On this week's Government Affairs Update, Steve Hall re-caps the week's events focusing on the bipartisan Senate agreement on infrastructure.  

Government Affairs Update for January 22, 2021 - The Chamber's Ed Mortimer Talks Biden and Build by the 4th

 
The U.S. Chamber's Ed Mortimer (@ChamberMoves) joined us on this week's update, on his birthday no less, to talk about the Chamber's outlook on infrastructure for the Biden Administration and the importance of the Build by the 4th campaign to have Congress enact infrastructure legislation by the 4th of July.
It's time to keep the pressure on Congress to act on infrastructure.  Make sure to follow the U.S. Chamber's efforts on social media.
 

The Omnibus, PPP and a Senate Flip: The ACEC Government Affairs Update for January 8th 2021

ACEC's Government Affairs team joined Engineering Influence for the first Government Affairs Update for 2021.
Make sure to like and subscribe to Engineering Influence so you never miss a weekly update from our GA team.

ACEC Research Institute Special: An Interview with WSP's John Porcari on America's New Playbook for Infrastructure

Engineering Influence and the ACEC Research Institute welcomed WSP's John Porcari onto the show to discuss his work with the ACEC Research Institute on the New Partnership on Infrastructure and  Accelerator for America's new report:  "A Playbook for a new Infrastructure Partnership."
 
Host:
Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. It is my pleasure to welcome John Porcari to the program. John is a senior advisor at WSP and has an impressive history, both as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation in the Obama administration, where he was second command to then Secretary Anthony Foxx. And before that, John served two terms as Maryland Secretary of Transportation. His experience in program management, planning, design, and construction delivery is widely sought after by elected officials and policy leaders across the political spectrum. And it's fair to say that his insights and advice are of great value to presidential candidates, which comes up to a sharp focus this year with the general election. Mr. Porcari is now with ACEC member from WSP, where he oversees the firm's advisory services.
Host:
And not long after the ACEC Research Institute was established, WSP suggested that one of the first projects the group could undertake was the new "Partnership for Infrastructure," which is a program that's also supported by ACEC member from HNTB. Now, the Partnership's focus was to interview mayors across the country to better understand local and urban infrastructure challenges and develop a playbook of actionable recommendations. And when the project started in early March, there was a lot of buzz about the potential for an infrastructure bill, but no one could have imagined the disruptive impact of COVID-19. And on top of that, how urban protests would make us all think more about the state of America's cities. Los Angeles-based Accelerator for America interviewed the mayors for the playbook over the course of the Spring and assembled the recommendations and led the socialization of the recommendations and various online forums. The ACEC Research Institute participated in the process as an advisor and a financial supporter, but it doesn't necessarily endorse all the recommendations, but the playbook provides a great value for, firm executives and leaders in the engineering and the A/E/C space. It provides a lot of access to gain key insights into the tough local challenges facing our cities. The mayors are looking for problem solving partners to address complex societal needs. In some cases they want consulting help before they even have projects identified. Also the complexity of project finances, much more challenging today, and simply identifying funding for a list of projects. We all know what COVID-19 and the crunch on state and municipal budgets has really done to the industry. Now, this playbook is called the community serving infrastructure, a playbook for a new infrastructure partnership, and it can be found@acceleratorforamerica.org. The link to that document as well as supporting documents will be added up to the show notes on this episode.
Host:
That was kind of a long introduction kind of setting it up here, John, but I want to give you the opportunity. Number one, thank you for coming on. And number two, you know, for us in the beltway, you are well known as an expert in public administration, infrastructure transportation for those outside of the beltway who are politically active and are engaged in the A/E/C industry. Can you tell us a little bit more about your major interests and, and in, in, in the field and, you know, the turning points in your career that kind of got you to this point?
John Porcari:
Sure. Jeff, and thanks for having me here today. I, I've been very lucky in my professional career, in both the public sector and the private sector and in the public sector, as you pointed out, sort of at the local level, the state level is the Secretary of Transportation at the federal levels, Deputy Secretary of Transportation. And now in the private sector working to help clients get these projects across the finish line which is harder and harder. And we can talk about this a little bit, some of the things that are holding it back, but what's motivated me through my whole career is infrastructure is economic development. I started my public sector career as an economic development person working on major projects. And the more time I spent on economic development, the more there was a transportation and infrastructure linkage to it.
John Porcari:
So it's kind of a natural crossover into transportation. And that's especially true at the local level. We have this great system in the U S at the federal state and local level where each level of government has various responsibilities under our Federalist system, but we sometimes forget that the real actions at the local level. So the project decisions are at the local level, the priorities are established at the local level, and then you have to work your way through what can be sometimes some very difficult federal processes and regulations, for example, to get those local priorities built. So one of the reasons that we were very interested in working with Accelerator for America and the Research Institute to actually join us in that endeavor was we wanted to take a local lens to it and hear directly from mayors of big as the city of Los Angeles. And as small as cities like South bend and Waterloo, Iowa what on the infrastructure side they would like to change and this playbook we've put together some very specific recommendations through that local lens. That'll really help all kinds of infrastructure projects.
Host:
Absolutely. That's something which, you know, echoes throughout the country. I mean, my personal experience was in Congress with former Chairman Shuster, both in the personal office and then a committee and in the personal office, in his area of Pennsylvania, it was always economic development. It was always, you cannot have growth and opportunity without infrastructure, which naturally just tied directly into roads intotransportation networks, because the two are intertwined. And, and those decisions at the local level at the County municipal level really are the things that shape what that economic development is going to look like. So having a playbook, having some kind of a document, which looks and focuses in on the needs and the requirements of mayors and of people who are really active in local government is, is critical because it's not all at the top. It's not all federal. How, how did the accelerator for America? How did, how were they chosen to do this project? Why were they kind of the, the ideal group to, to undertake this?
John Porcari:
It's a great question. We began this discussion, this journey, essentially trying to take a local view to infrastructure by talking to some of the think tanks in the Washington area, some of the larger established organizations and it was such a different kind of view for them that they had trouble getting their heads around it. And so again, together with the ACEC Research Institute we had been working with Accelerator for America on specific projects. And as opposed to a think tank, the Accelerator is known as a do tank. These are mayors like all mayors and County commissioners and County councils that are out there working these issues every day. And, you know, if it works and, you know, if it doesn't at the local level, there's no hiding it. So a believer or not no one has done this before taking this local lens to infrastructure and tried to change federal regulations and requirements and programs to fit local needs rather than the other way around, rather than the experience of mayors and County commissioners across America is you have to kind of force fit what you're trying to do at the local level into whatever federal silo is out there.
John Porcari:
So we took the opposite approach Accelerator turned out to be the perfect partner for it. And the interviews, which were part of the process with mayors across the country, Republicans, Democrats, independents - party had nothing to do with it. Infrastructure had everything to do with it. And it truly is one of the bipartisan issues out there. We heard some common themes that turned into these recommendations in the playbook. Some are very specific, and frankly, some of them are relatively easy to do and would make the infrastructure work at the local level. So much easier, so much more freedom to adapt to local conditions.
Host:
Absolutely. It's really a paradigm shift because so much of the time we're focused on federal policy and programs. And those are developed, you know, with, with some thought and input from state DOT, administrators and such, but really it's, it's never given that focus from the local area because, you know, their needs should really bubble up and shape that policy, because if you're able to solve a lot of the problems with the local level, and a lot of the things that the consulting industry engineering consulting, engineering industry can come in and help in that process as well, understanding how to apply solutions to the challenges that are facing at the local level. It can speed project delivery can improve policy. At the national level, it seems like a natural model that hasn't been followed a lot by Congress. It's an interesting thing.
John Porcari:
That's exactly right. And, and the members of ACEC, I think could be very helpful in this and the the at the local level mayors and their counterparts don't have the luxury of thinking in the silos that the federal government operates in. And as you point out, the reality is that innovation doesn't trickle down from the federal level, it bubbles up from the local level and some of the more successful infrastructure work and infrastructure policies, and even projects have been local decisions that aggregate into a national system. And if, if you think about goods movement, if you think about moving people safely and efficiently they're really thousands of local decisions that together make the national policy not the other way around. We tried to reflect that in the playbook and make sure that the mayors were heard loud and clear on what their priorities were in our, in of course it varies all over the country based on local conditions, but to a person, they, they understood the fact that it's economic development it's quality of life, of their communities, it's building the economic future.
John Porcari:
So in one example, the highway right away is not just right away to them. It's, it's how their water and wastewater systems are conveyed as storm stormwater management. It's where broadband is bringing an economic future to these communities. And so they don't think of it as the state highway departments right away. They think of it is their economic future.
Host:
Yeah. And those, those city planners, those, those you know, local planners have to look forward on, on where's the growth and opportunity going to be, where can we actually create the economic development and how can we use all of those pieces of the infrastructure puzzle together to more effectively create jobs, or attract businesses? One of the big issues that we had in central Pennsylvania was trying to get headquarters with operations and, and trying to do it in such a place where you not only had right away or, or thoroughfare, but then you also have the actual wastewater, water, infrastructure, broadband, all those different aspects. And it's, it's, it's the, at the local level, you see more of the picture than you do if you're just sitting, like you said, in those silos, and you're just looking at one or two different things now, when this started, and we didn't have any idea of what was around the bend. I mean the focus of this project must have been impacted by the pandemic. And then, you know, the social issues layered on top of that kind of two part question, the first is how did it change scope, but then, you know, how did it, how did it also expand to, put a focus on to urban areas of, and their infrastructure needs and how they may have been underserved in the past and looking at what they might need to rebuild after the pandemic?
John Porcari:
It's a great question, Jeff. And we got some great direct input from these mayors. And so is one example. We talked to dozens of mayors across the Heartland of America small and medium sized cities where they're grappling with all kinds of issues, but, but again, trying to build an economic futureit makes sure they could do it. And as we started this project, the pandemic hit so it did change the infrastructure priority to some extent, for example one of the medium sized Midwestern cities that we were working closely with found that to do online instruction for their public school district almost 40% of their students didn't have access to broadband. You can imagine what that did to the priority of broadband relative to some of the other infrastructure priorities that they have at the same timethings like some of the transit service and planning for a future transit capacity changed as well, knowing that that economic lifeline of transit, connecting people to opportunities is, is every bit as important in some of these smaller jurisdictions as it is in large areas.
John Porcari:
And it was a go-no-go item for employment in many ways. So the, the it also at the same time with some of the storm events and natural disasters that we've had in the country while we were developing this, the whole idea of resilience, which really means something in practical terms terms at the local level resiliency is being able to operate your infrastructure, making sure your roads aren't flooded out and your water and wastewater systems work. And you actually have electrical power that can survive these events is something that is, is a very practical value at the local level and something that these mayors are very focused on. So as opposed to an esoteric discussion at the national level about resiliency and climate change the practical, nuts and bolts part of it is it changes infrastructure priorities at the local level. They see the facts on the ground and they have to respond to them. In real time.
Host:
I noticed in the last Congress near the end, the T&I Committee specifically was looking at a lot of different areas related to resiliency, and the word came up a lot more. But I don't think there was a complete appreciation for what it meant. Do you think that these stories and these recommendations from mayors can help fully flesh out federal law makers understanding of the importance of resiliency and what it means? It's not a political term, it's an actual, this is something that has to be considered.
John Porcari:
Yes, Jeff that's exactly right. It is not at all a political term. It's not some esoteric discussion at the local level. It's it's the practical impact of flooding where, you know, the prudent thing to do on the redesigned side is to upsize the the culverts. It's, it's where, you know, that having buried utilities makes them much more resilient for outages and storm events. The practical impact is something that we saw very clearly and heard very clearly from the mayors where they want to make sure that they're squeezing every bit of value out of harder and tax dollars for this infrastructure by making a durable. And future-proofing it to the extent that you can. So one of the great things about applying this local lens to infrastructure is it takes the kind of sterile Washington philosophical and political discussion out of this and puts the practical impact in there where these are people across the political spectrum, working side by side, acknowledging that building more resilient infrastructure is the smart thing to do from an economics point of view. And from obviously from a service delivery point of view for your city.
Host:
Absolutely. I know that there are four broad, which kind of form the focus of the document, and that's maximizing investment for a job and small business growth, empowering localities with effective tools and processes, funding, and financing for community serving infrastructure and making transformative investments for more resilient future, going back to the resiliency part, taking kind of that last one, since we're talking about that, like you said, the impact of, of, of looking at the local level and, and saying, like you said, you know, these power lines, you know, or what have you should be placed underground, or the covert should be made larger. I mean, that definitely will have an impact on those budgetary decisions. And, and especially with the way that the States are going right now having that cash crunch related to the pandemic how do you think the document's going to come into play with that?
John Porcari:
It's a great question. So there are some very specific recommendations related to resiliency, for example, that, that helped carry the argument for these cities to, to do things differently, but it also calls for a reset at the federal level. It's the, it's the local government saying, for example, that you need to form a federal infrastructure planning council. We have all of these federal agencies that don't even talk to each other, let alone work together on a regular basis at the local level, you don't have the luxury of, of building things in silos, organizational silos, this federal infrastructure planning council would be a forcing mechanism to get the different federal agencies like the Corps of Engineers responsible for all of our inland waterways, great lakes inland maritime transportation working with other federal agencies where they very seldom interact in practical terms where they do it's at the local level where you have local representatives and a local project that forces them to work together.
John Porcari:
So the idea is at the state and federal level to, to really highlight what some of those disconnects are, and in, in a very practical way, show how we can do a better job. And again, it recognizes the reality that's that's in our constitution and in the way we operate under federalism, but is not recognized in our institutional structures, which is those decisions and choices are made at the local level. And they should be but you don't have a federal partner that's necessarily recognizing that. And the federal share of funding in many cases in percentage terms is declining every year. So you have this ironic position of more local funding going into these projects, less federal funding, but federal regulation that makes it difficult to do business.
Host:
So how would that, how would that planning council be structured? Would that be executive level, or would that be kind of a congressional action? How do, how, how how's the playbook kind of see this happening?
John Porcari:
Well, it can be done a couple of ways, what the playbook focuses on are practical solutions. So for that planning council, the deputies level that the deputy secretaries and deputy directors in the federal departments by definition are the chief operating officers. And on, on important issues, they function is a deputy's council where they actually get together and work through issues. And what, what the playbook is saying is that for infrastructure planning at the deputy secretary at the deputy director level, we really should have that kind of coordination across the executive branch. Now, as you well know, from, from, from your background, these individuals report to all different committees of jurisdiction, but that shouldn't be the local government's problem. Right?
Speaker 3:
The whole idea is, is that you have the, the executive branch agencies working with each other to make it easier for the project choices and to build those projects at the local level.
Host:
So formalize the informal working groups into an actual council that meets and discusses infrastructure and creates a liaison for the States and for local governments to bring the ideas up, to be discussed at that operational level. That's right. And give them a specific agenda on where those barriers to cooperation are, where some of the loan programs are too restrictive and can't be used. The what you tend to do at the local level is try to get as much different kinds of infrastructure into every project that you do at the federal level. It's more of kind of a rifle shot approach where you have very narrow programs. So part of the agenda for that planning council for example, would be to broaden those programs to think more holistically to, again, frankly get better value out of these public investments by making the infrastructure more holistic and more comprehensive. It sounds fairly common sense. So, so how would, how would that, for example, you know, how would these policies accelerate, you know, improvements really that the brick and mortar infrastructure and the people really care about the, you know, you have the drinking and the wastewater, of course you know, Flint was, you know, still is the poster child for that, but then, like you mentioned earlier, we have, we have broadband, we have the issue with the gas tax and we have declining revenues, but have increasing, you know, via electric vehicle market, but we don't have a national electric vehicle charging infrastructure, you know, that's something which has to be addressed. And, and the other, those transformative areas that seem to be happening at the state and local level, of course, the States that are really ahead of the curve and trying to be centers of innovation and are starting to think of transportation, not in transportation sense, but as in mobility and, and, and as a holistic way of looking at things how would these policies help accelerate that the federal level?
John Porcari:
Yeah, it would do. It would happen a couple of ways. One I mentioned, which is most infrastructure projects of any size are not funded anymore. They're financed. And that's, that's a very important difference where it may be a 50 or 70 year lifespan piece of infrastructure that has a 35 year loan against it. Broadening the eligibility of those loans would be one thing, expanding the capacity of the federal loan programs, whether it's for highway or transit, water or wastewater. If you just look at the lead pipe and lead contamination issue, the, the existing federal programs capacity for loans is only a fraction of what you would actually need. And it's not just Flint, Michigan it's cities and towns across the country and rural areas. It's also other federal policies. So electric vehicle tax credits can be expanded, accelerated depreciation, all the kind of tax policies that actually trigger private sector investment in infrastructure or public private partnerships is, is something that can be encouraged through these recommendations. And the idea was to be w was, was to try to address the infrastructure needs and be agnostic on whether it's publicly addressed or privately addressed, or a partnership between the two but across the spectrum to try to identify some of these very specific recommendations that that can actually make these things happen.
Host:
Yeah, and that's a very important point because earlier in the couple of months ago, we did a, a round table discussion on the future of funding and transportation. And we had some, some policy think tank guys. We had Jeff Davis and Eno, and we had some thought leaders from Harvard. We had kind of a mixture and everyone agreed that, you know, reliance on farebox revenues especially now. I mean, you can't do it, you can't do it. There has to be a, there's not one solution. There has to be a number of different solutions to broaden the type of financing that you can actually go for for these projects that, you know, just relying on trust, run revenue, for example, is, is something which is, which is difficult in a time of declining revenues. Is there a recommendation on the trust fund within the document?
John Porcari:
It doesn't make a specific recommendation on the trust fund. The participants in this study, like everyone else acknowledged that's that it has to be changed. The system has to be changed. There's no, there's no trust in the trust fund anymore, right? If the Congress has to keep putting general funds and other monies into the trust fund, it's actually not a trust fund where and especially with the recession related to the pandemic, we're seeing trust, run revenues declining very rapidly. But the idea would be to at the local level and the federal level to open the aperture for more innovation on the funding and financing side. And there are jurisdictions that have limitations on how they can raise local funds. These local bond issuances and referenda and local other kinds of local self-help initiatives are limited in many places yet.
John Porcari:
They're actually the primary funding source of the local funds for many of these infrastructure projects. So opening it up across the board and making a better case that infrastructure is actually an investment. Yes, it's an expenditure, but infrastructure given its lifespan and given the economic activity that generates is actually a good investment. Whether it's airports and air service highway transit, the utilities that provide services you simply can't have economic growth and the quality of life we all want without that infrastructure investment.
Host:
And, and I know there, there are a couple of ideas about state local road transfers and federal funding for betterments. Can you go a little bit more into that? You know, what problems are we solving by transferring road ownership from, from state to local governments and, and what is the focus on betterments about?
John Porcari:
Sure, let me take each of those in turn so that the road transfer part of it is a recognition that the primary purpose of any given road may change over time. So in every state, there are state routes, the numbered state routes that were probably very important from a regional point of view maybe back to the horse and buggy days. But that state route is now main street for a town or city. And in that municipality it's serving a very different local function as opposed to the regional function that was originally built for. And so who would be the best steward of that? Who would use that right away most effectively for all the things we talked about, water and wastewater, broadband, burying electric utilities transit service, maybe dedicated transit lanes inductive charging in the next few years.
John Porcari:
The idea is that some of the functions of those roads, which were much more of a state function in the past local function now, it's not true in every case. The idea is to look at those individually and see where it makes sense it might have been for that state route example, 75% interest state regional traffic before. And it may be 25% now. So who would be the best steward of that? The betterment issue is a really interesting one, the when there's a hurricane or tornado or storm event that does significant damage for example, to our highway infrastructure. There's, there are emergency relief funds from the federal government to rebuild that in this highway example and until not too long ago about eight years ago, you could only rebuild that highway the same way it was built before you could not put in bigger storm drainage culverts.
John Porcari:
You couldn't raise the elevation. The idea of betterment is now accepted and it's federally funding eligible where you could rebuild that highway. And now you can do it with transit. You can pull it out of the flood, plain, you, you can armor it in ways where you're not rebuilding the same facility time after time with federal money, emergency relief money, every time it's common sense, but it's something that literally was not allowed until fairly recently. And so one aspect of resilience is to make sure those betterments rebuilding smarter every time is built into the core of what we do.
Host:
Yeah, that's a really good point and it makes complete sense. And I know, but it's the kind of thing that, that from an, you know, from an industry perspective, when, when a firm like WSP or a firm, you know, another ACEC member firm is brought onto a project, you know, they're of course working as a trusted advisor to their client to be able to say, okay, well, this road is built this way, but what we know of, you know, past events and you know, our expertise that we bring into it is that you should be improving it in a number of ways. And here is our expert consultation on how to, how to do that. And, if that idea is, is adopted by a broader swath of the States, that it means that you're going to have an improvement overall in the length and the value of infrastructure, like you said, stretching that dollar, that taxpayer dollar further, and just rebuilding a road exactly how it was. And it's just going to be washed away or destroyed in an earthquake, or what have you again,
John Porcari:
Right. That's right.
Host:
Now we talked about fund financing. We talked about the betterment issue. I know that the plan has a few deregulatory ideas on, on project delivery and cutting red tape. They include accelerated procurements reviews, the permitting, P3 processing. I, you know, we've heard a lot of these ideas from state officials. Did it really surprise you that a lot of these priorities were also coming from mayors who were interviewed?
John Porcari:
Not really the, the more time you spend with mayors, the more you see that they really are hands on problem solvers. So the one of the specific recommendations shortening the procurement cycle is basically the the city's asking the federal government to do what they've already done. We had a mayor for example, that during the pandemic cut their procurement times by 50% and just did it they're meeting all their legal criteria. It's there's no part of the procurement process that's been compromised, but they literally shave 50% of the time off. And the idea is if you can do that at a local level, it can be done at the federal level too. And it, if you do it at the local level and you don't have a federal partner that also cuts their response time and their review time, it doesn't help because you have to get ultimately get there. Okay. Anyway, so these are commonsense forms that don't really don't compromise the quality or the integrity of the process or the project. But what, what the recommendation is really saying is we can do it at the local level. We'd like our federal partners to do the same
Host:
Now to kind of wrap it up. I know the last areas, it really kind of goes into the job creation and employment issue, which is, which is especially important now with the effects of of the pandemic on, on employment. But the playbook discusses a number of of different areas. Here are the importance of training centers of local and targeted construction hires and support for small and medium sized businesses and, and the importance of, of expanding federal research into a lot of these emerging transportation and, you know, planning and such, where do you see this going? You know, what area in this kind of gets your attention the most?
John Porcari:
Well from a local perspective, this was a really pressing issue as well. So part of it is trying to squeeze again, as much value as you can out of tax dollars, by making sure the money stays in the local economy, to the extent possible. You know, at the end of the day, these infrastructure jobs or jobs you can't export, they are American jobs. And as an industry, there's a lot we can do to maximize that. But it also it also talks about taking projects as an opportunity to move people up the skill scale. So if you are learning a skilled trade from a laborer to say high voltage, electrician or welder is part of that project. You have brought someone into the middle class and doing that. And there's a whole ecosystem that could be helpful to that.
John Porcari:
The community colleges that are operated at the local level, we'll put together a training course for anything there's demand for. And there's a little bit of a chicken and egg aspect of this, where you need to make it, if it's clear, the demand is there for skills training, as part of infrastructure construction, the training will be there through private programs to community colleges, through unions and others, lots of providers but what we have not done and, and you can't do at the local level by yourself is systematically put, put that together into a system that lifts people up that skills ladder and provides better opportunities.
Host:
And that that's, you know, cross jurisdictional, because that's not just, you know, infrastructure or transportation policy, but it's educational policy at the, at the national level. It's how, how do you, how do you make the two kind of fit together, which shows, you know, the size of the task, but also the value of these recommendations to inform especially federal policy makers. Since it's an election year, I can't not ask the question. How has this playbook been received by the candidates have you or anyone else from, from, you know, who were leading this charge brought this to either the presidential campaigns or, or any of the the leadership and at the federal level to say that if, as you're, as you're developing policies, keep this in mind.
John Porcari:
It's a great question. At the beginning of this discussion, I mentioned that this is very much a bipartisan effort by bipartisan mayors. And so the playbook recommendations have been made available across the board people on both sides of the aisle have been briefed on it. I will just tell you from my personal perspective and personal experience and full disclosure, I'm a strong supporter of vice president Biden. The uptake of these ideas and, and concepts behind it has been very positive. There's a recognition that, that again, the innovation's at the local level, the decision making's at the local level, let's make sure we're letting our local elected officials make they know what the right choices are for their jurisdictions. Let's back them up and support them with federal policies that actually help them as opposed to getting in their way.
Host:
That's a really good point. And I think a good, a good area to, to leave it on. John, do you have anything else to add about the playbook? It, we've covered a lot of ground here. We know a lot of the recommendations, but is there anything, any, any final parting thought that our listeners should know going out of it?
John Porcari:
Well, I, again, this is, this is from a local perspective and it's very practical as mayors are. So there, there's nothing in here that can't be implemented ACEC members around the country should really think about how this can help locally. To a person ,the members are working at the local level, helping with those local choices, literally use the playbook for what it's intended to be, which is a way to help you with infrastructure, construction and, and in a more general sense, help make the connection between infrastructure and economic growth and prosperity. And the fact is, you know, if we're honest with ourselves, you can look at infrastructure coast to coast here, if you're honest with yourself, and you look at that infrastructure more than likely it was built and paid for by your parents, or maybe your grandparents, and in some cases, your great grandparents. So, it is just irresponsible of us not to invest in the future. It's the best thing we can do for the country going forward in terms of thinking about the future.
Host:
Yeah, really good parting thoughts there, because I think that one of the things that our members are very busy running their firms are very busy of course, with the work that they have ahead of themselves and running an office from the time of pandemic. But we can't lose sight of the fact that, that from an industry perspective, we're the thought leaders who can help drive these decision making processes at all levels of government that as an ACEC member, as a professional engineer and a business leader, there's a platform and there's expertise that our elected officials can't get anywhere else. And if they're able to use this documentthe playbook as a way to inform their thinking and develop their own thinking it'll help raise the profile of the industry as a whole, which is of course, one of the focuses of the institutes, you know, one of the key missions is to support the growth and the thought leadership of the industry.
Host:
But, you know, from a business sense, it'll, it'll make you more competitive when you're going for business, because you can put that economic argument behind it. You can put that, you know, like non, non partisan political argument to, to tie it all together and justify a project. I guess I do want to put a plug in because the, the ACC research Institute coming up in the, in, in, in next few weeks is going to be delving into aspects of the playbook. We're going to be doing some round tables on the playbook in conjunction with Accelerator for America. And we had our first series of round tables on the future of engineering. They were very successful and we look forward to another successful series coming up in, in only a few weeks but more information on that's going to be coming up shortly.
Host:
So stay tuned. We are going to post up the the, the program on the show notes, we will have a link to the, to the Accelerator for America website. And then of course, that will have the link to the playbook. John, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. And I know our listeners really benefited from hearing your views and your expertise.
John Porcari:
It's my pleasure. And I do want to thank the ACEC Research Institute, and also everyone who's involved in putting this playbook together, because it took a lot of hands to actually get a nationwide perspective here.
Host:
Well hopefully we can have you back on the show a little bit later after we have those round tables and kind of maybe after once we get a better idea of what happens in November, and we get a better idea of, you know, what infrastructure policy might look like and either administration it might be good to revisit these issues. So until then, again, John Porcari, He leads advisory services at WSP, but he is also just a very, very knowledgeable individual when it comes to federal and state and local transportation policy. And thank you so much for being on the show.
John Porcari:
My pleasure, Jeff. Thanks.
Host:
And this has been Engineering Influence a podcast from the American council of engineering companies. We'll see you next time.
 
 
 

Government Affairs Update for May 21, 2020

Steve Hall, Matt Reiffer and Katharine Mottley from ACEC's Advocacy team joined Engineering Influence for our very first video podcast to give a government relations update on their Rescue, Recover, Rebuild grassroots advocacy campaign and the current status of the PPP program.
Transcript:
Host:
Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by American Council of Engineering Companies. Today we are bringing a new kind of twist to our podcast. We're in the world of Zoom and COVID-19. We're going to try to do something visual this time and have a government affairs update with our own Steve Hall who has been practically on Zoom since the day started to um bring us up to date on what's going on with the Paycheck Protection Program. I want to give you guys a little bit of an idea of where things stand here as far as the association goes and with our industry on the PPP program. In our latest member survey on May 8th, we found that 88% of respondents reported applying for the program. And 94% of those said that they'd been approved for the PPP program and another 4% are awaiting approval.
Host:
So it was very popular with the industry and 94% let's see here. And just under two thirds, 64% of those firms plan to use all of the loan funding while 22% plan to use some of it and return to rest only 2% right now or are considering returning all of the funds. So it's a program is being accessed by our industry, many other industries. It is a monumental effort by the SBA. This is not an agency that's actually designed to do something like this to take this amount of volume of applications and this kind of money and try to get it out to the economy. It's been going well but there've been issues with guidance. Treasury and SBA have been slow to get some certainty out there with certain aspects of their FAQ. And things have changed over the past couple of days. And Steve, if you want to kind of bring us up to date on, on where the program stands and, and what Treasury and SBA have done and what really, you know, it was going on with the program right now.
Steve Hall:
Yeah, thanks Jeff. Now we're seeing some encouraging developments really over the past week and a lot of anxiety up until now, and it's lingering a bit, but over two issues really. The issue of, of certifying good faith in terms of economic uncertainty, in other words, is, is the firm worthy to, to receive this loan. And I think what we saw released last week was encouraging basically loan holders at $2 million and below are essentially defacto certified by virtue of the size of the loan. And then the guidance goes on to say that for borrowers above that $2 million SBA is going to work with them through a process to help them to to figure out if they can meet that certification threshold, but a much more encouraging tone, a much more deferential tone than perhaps we had seen in, in previous weeks.
Steve Hall:
Where there was a great deal of concern generated about you know, what SBA and the federal government take a very punitive approach to borrowers really outside of what we thought was within the intent of Congress. I think Congress really wanted to be very deferential to to borrowers and try to structure the program as such. So that was a good step on that question of certification and and I expect that we hope we'll be seeing some additional information come out on that. The next issue was loan forgiveness. You know, the core of the program and we did see some information come out earlier this week. You know, the, the application for forgiveness and the kind of data and criteria that SBA is looking for, which gives us a sense of what it was, what it's going to take to get some, most, all of your loan forgiven and some guidance with that.
Steve Hall:
I think we are expecting to see additional guidance, more comprehensive guidance forthcoming. But again, this has been helpful to our firms, to our CPAs, to, to get at least an initial sense of what the agency is looking for to satisfy that question. So, you know, good news over the last week, not a complete catalog of information that we need and where you're hoping to see that relatively soon. And as if history is any judge, you know, it may be that con or SBA and treasury continue to put out guidance in small traunches and then refine that guidance responding to questions from organizations like ACEC. And then at some point we may actually have to go back to Congress if there are structural problems or challenges that are really beyond SBAs per view to to fix where we have to amend the law. We'll do that. But we'll work hand in glove with our members before we do that and work with our CPAs. We've got a lot of very smart people working with us to you know, go through this information and to come up with recommendations that we need to deliver both to the agency and to Congress.
Host:
Because it is a popular program. And I think that the universal call or answer from, from the private sector is that they want it to be a success. So that there's a lot of, you know, it's not a adversarial relationship with, with, but the SBA and Treasury, it's more just informing them of what we need, what we need to actually make this program work as it's intended. So it's good to see that that guidance come out. And again, you know, as we get this information, of course we're putting it out anywhere we can. So we have our Coronavirus Resource page of course, which is on acec.org. It's right on the homepage when you see that. And, and we're making sure to put all this information into our normal communications to members. There's going to be a weekly message coming out from our CEO, Linda Darr. It's going to be focusing on a lot of what Steve just mentioned here and everything's been linked and it's all available for you.
Steve Hall:
And Jeff, just to add to that you know, the education side of ACEC is teed up and ready. We've got a panel of CPAs that will take part in a free webinar. Once that additional guidance comes out, we expect that we'll be well attended and we will redo it as often as we need to and as often as new guidance comes out but you know, but the organization really geared itself around getting that information in the hands of our members as soon as possible so they can make good business decisions. And and we're certainly going to continue with that.
Steve Hall:
And I know that you've been, like I said earlier, you know, you've been busy all day on Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting. We are right in the midst of a larger advocacy push under the Rescue, Rebuild and Recover kind of theme and it's been a virtual grassroots effort. Letters, emails, meetings, Zoom meetings with members of Congress. How many meetings do you think you've been on right now with, with members of the House and Senate with ACEC members across the country?
Steve Hall:
Gosh, I think we're North of total North of 70 meetings so far. And and these are happening. I've been on a few today and I know my colleagues Matt Reiffer, Katharine Mottley have been participating in these as well. And really the message has been coming back has been very encouraging, you know, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. They get it. I mean, they want, they very much want to support a recovery agenda built around infrastructure and you know, there's lingering questions as there always is about how to pay for it. But a great deal of interest in doing this. I think you know, as you've heard me say before, I think Congress is still in emergency response mode and still thinking near term needs. I think what, what may be emerging as the next package of assistance may actually be built around assisting state and local government agencies, DOD, transit agencies things of that nature.
Steve Hall:
Obviously that's something we're very supportive of, you know, anything that will prevent, you know, current projects from being interrupted or shutting down. We want to be supportive of and there does seem to be an inkling of bipartisan support emerging from this approach. So that may be the catalyst for the next package. You know, as, as Katharine indicated, there's sort of hopeful expectation. We might see something in June on that package and and then hopefully, you know, Congress then switches gears and thanks a bit longer term, you know, in a multiyear recovery agenda, you know, built around what Congress has to do this year. They've got to do a surface transportation bill to replace the fast fact by September 30, and they've got to do a big water package. And the Senate stepping out, they, they have reported all of those bills out of committee unanimously. Which is great to see. And and that gives you know, the congressional leaders in the Senate the option to package all of them together into one big package or to move them separately if they wish, but actually to get something done this year, but they got us, they got to move quickly because the clock is ticking.
Host:
Yeah, it's not in their favor. And you mentioned, you mentioned Matt and Katharine and I think they have joined us, so I'm going to switch over to a view and bring them in. And thank you both for joining in. So we have really the the, the feet on the, the, the boots on the ground here for the PPP and surface transportation effort. So Matt and Katherine, thanks for joining the interview here. Steve was going over, a lot of the PPP work has been done. A lot of the guidance coming out and of course the webinars and the meetings with members of Congress, part of our advocacy program. I mean, I know you've been on some of the meetings as well. How do you think they've gone, this is new, it's virtual instead of going actually into somebody's office and talking to somebody, you have a screen like this where you know, you have maybe 10 people or less and a member of Congress. How, how has it compared to what, you know, the traditional shoe leather lobbying that you guys do?
Katharine Mottely:
You know, Jeff, I think that's a really interesting question. I mean it is a different kind of connection. On the one hand you don't get that face to face. You, you can't really read the body language and get and get sort of that better sense of the story behind what they're telling you. On the other hand, I think it has sort of opened up these meetings to a larger swath of our members. The meetings that I've been on have had, you know, 25 members from the state with their senators and for some of them some of those folks may not have been able travel to DC on a normal basis anyway. So, you know, I think that sort of greater access for both, for our members and for the legislators can be a good thing.
Matt Reiffer:
I would agree with that. In the, in the few that I've been on what's nice is you get the Congressmen or the Senator's undivided attention for a block of time. When you're meeting in DC, almost inevitably you get interrupted by votes or committee meetings or markups or important briefings or something. But particularly for the house members who have largely been back in their districts you know, they're not, they're not getting pulled away into those sorts of things. So you get, you know, 20 to 30 minutes of their undivided attention, which is really tremendous. And there, you know, they are so eager to hear about what's going on with their constituents, where their local businesses. So it was valuable for them to hear not just here's our advocacy priorities, but you know, here's what we're working on. Here's what we're experiencing, here's what we're concerned about, you know here are plans for, you know, reopening our offices or keeping our employees safe. Here's the, you know, here's what we're doing, worksite protocols and safety, you know, just a range of things that they care about. And then, yeah, how are the aid packages that we've already approved working for you? Are they helpful? What do we need to change? Cause they want to know. So this has been really valuable input for them.
Steve Hall:
You know, Jeff, Matt made a really good point there with respect to, you know, how certainly our members reviewed on these calls. You know, because there are great conversations with lawmakers and the lawmakers and seeing each one of those faces on the screen and they're often zoom calls like this. Each one of those faces represents a firm that employs many people. So that, that, that ACC member talking is not really talking just for himself or herself. But for all of the folks that work in the firm and and that reality is not lost on lawmakers and the staff that participates on these calls these, these, these contacts resonate and really do have meaning.
Host:
And it's just not, the meetings are fantastic. So I think it provides a, it's a new way of reaching out and talking to your member of Congress in person, virtually in person. Like I said, Katharine, if you have 25 people on a call, it's hard, you're hard pressed to find, you know, 25 people don't get them into an office. Even, even a, even a ranking where a senior Member, you know, their offices aren't big enough to fit 25 people in normally. So being able to get people on a screen, you know, you get more, more bang for your buck there. But then we're also doing the traditional, you know, letter writing. We're doing, you know, emails to Members of Congress and of course, social media activity. Matt, I mean we, we've, we've topped a significant number of compared to, I think the last major push was on tax reform and I think we've kind of eclipsed the number of, of emails and messages sent. What's the last you have the last tally available? I know, I don't, don't want to spring it on you, but I know that
Matt Reiffer:
I don't, but I can click over and check and get them.
Host:
Yeah, no, that would be great 'cause I know that the number is significant.
Matt Reiffer:
Get you real time information. Hang on just a sec.
Host:
Yeah. that would be awesome because again, you know, on the, on the acc.org website you know, you'll see it right there. When you land on the page, you'll see advocacy and that takes you to the R3 - Rescue, Recover, Rebuild advocacy site where you can click to tweet. It has issue sheets. It has social media resources for, for grassroots activism. And it's really a one stop shop for everything that you need to take part in this.
Steve Hall:
You know, Jeff during tax reform. And Katharine knows this. I mean, we generated something on the order of 6,000 contacts with lawmakers and which was far and away bigger than we've ever done. And I think when, when Matt last checked this, we were rapidly closing in on that amount. So this campaign is going to go into the summer and I have no doubt that we're going to Go well beyond what we did previously.
Katharine Mottely:
And you know, Steve, just to add to that, I've heard comments from a couple of our members who remember that advocacy effort during tax reform and part of what they've communicated back is that we didn't realize that we could have such an effect. We didn't realize that our engagement through ACC and contacting our members of Congress could result in such a good outcome. And so a lot of them would have remembered that and taken it forward to this time. And they see that what they do and say and the emails they send can make a difference.
Matt Reiffer:
I just checked - we've got 2,060 member firm advocates who have taken action and delivered just about 6,400 messages to the Hill.
Steve Hall:
That may be a new record right there.
Matt Reiffer:
Tremendous outcome.
Host:
And again, yeah, this is, this is, this is in its early stages. It's going to evolve as the situation evolves. You know, we're calling for of course a focus on an infrastructure based recovery agenda. Of course that's going to be focused again and Steve, like you mentioned, FAST Act reauthorization and WRDA - two pieces of legislation that are must do's must pass bills and they're already teed up. Each chamber is working on its own respect of tracks and as you noted in the Senate, they've been marked out unanimously. There's no real bipartisan schism when it comes to WRDA and surface - they are a lot closer than people think. So the, the continued push by our grassroots to get this through is going to be significant.
Steve Hall:
It's going to be critical. Jeff, not to interrupt cause we've, we're, we're hoping to see how spills emerge in the month of June. And so you know, it'd be great if we could double those numbers in the month of June and and give some additional push behind house lawmakers to, to at least get this out of committee in the month of June and get them ready for floor consideration.
Host:
Absolutely. Well we covered PPP, we covered kind of the advocacy campaign and the, and the work you guys are doing on, on, on the individual member meetings, but then also the webinars and everything else that's going on. I mean it's, it seems like every day there's, there's, there's another webinar or three webinars that we're running to, to make sure we're covered. Anything else to think of as we enter kind of an odd Memorial day weekend?
Steve Hall:
Ah, you know, just, just the, the issues we've talked about and then side issues, you know, we're working to make sure that issues relative to from overhead are addressed and protected. You know, there is a, you know, regulatory action on the part of the department of defense that would require firms that receive forgiven loans to provide their federal clients with a credit to offset those loans. We don't think that really was the intent of Congress. We've pushed back and we actually have developed a letter that a number of organizations are signing on to, to help us push back. So that's an ongoing priority and something that Matt has been working with the rest of the team on. And as well as similar efforts in issues and potential concerns on the transportation side with respect to state DOTs and the Federal Highway Administration. You know, in addition to the big issues in Congress, there's a lot of granular issues that we're working on with respect to those issues and you know, tax issues and the tax deductability questions that are outstanding relative to firms that receive PPP loans and something that Katharine has been working on.
Matt Reiffer:
Yeah, I was going to say Katharine and I were a little late coming onto this call because we were just coming off a small firm roundtable with about 40, 45 participants, a really great forum for information sharing and helpful for us to listen to and hear what firms are experiencing. And yeah, there are a lot of interest in both of those issues. A lot of those firms took PPP loans, are interested in forgiveness, interested in the tax component of that as well as the potential impact on their overhead rates in terms of loan forgiveness and how that may be treated for federal state contractors. So yeah, very timely and yeah, very interesting.
Host:
Yeah, it's nonstop with government affairs right now. So I know it's we're coming on to about half an hour. I know you guys have a busy packed schedule, so I really appreciate you all taking the time to to appear on a kind of an oddly I guess just figure we live on Zoom now. Might as well tried to do a video interview instead of just the the, the good old audio podcast that we do. So thank you for being on. And again, this is Engineering Influence brought to you by the American Council of Engineering Companies. Katharine, Matt, Steve have a great Memorial Day weekend. Stay safe, stay healthy and and stay engaged with us 'cause we are off to the races. Just go to acec.org click on advocacy. It's right there on the homepage. It'll take you right there to the R3 advocacy page, all the resources that you need to take advantage of the grassroots campaign we're running. It's all there for you and just take advantage of it. So thank you all for being on.
 

Business Continuity and Adaption in the Time of COVID-19

Sean Goldwasser, Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for Black & Veatch's Water Business in North America, joined the podcast to discuss how the firm is adapting to the challenges of conducting business in the age of COVID-19.
Transcript:
Host:Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. And we're coming to you today with another part of our ongoing series that really focuses in on the big new story of the, of the day that we're all living through, which is the coronavirus pandemic and specifically how the industry, the engineering industry, is dealing with this really unforeseen and unprecedented challenge. And today I'm very pleased to be joined by Shawn Goldwasser. He is the Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for Black and Veatch's water business in North America. And Sean really brings some good perspectives from the industry as far as how Black and Veatch has adapted the main concerns that they have related to the coronavirus pandemic, both internally from a business standpoint and external also from a client side. And Sean, I really appreciate you coming on the show to provide your perspectives here. I guess first off, let's just talk about, you know, how are things where, where are you working now and, and, and kinda how is the, how's the environment that you've adapted to.
Sean:Jeff, thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. So, so like a lot of people today I'm working from my house. I've got a family of four, a college student and a high school student, and we're all sharing bandwidth and they're doing their home studies. And as I'm doing work from home and, and it's, it's a good problem to have, I'll put it this way. So Kansas City both on the Kansas and Missouri side, it's been relatively mild here. We don't have the same size of populations that you're talking about. And some of those coastal areas we still do have international travel covers, but again, not to the same level you'd expect to see in California or New York, that type of thing. So the actual number of cases that have happened here have been quite a lot fewer if for no other reason than just because the population is smaller as well. I would say that people in the community at large seems to be dealing with it with relative calm but with the same concern and uncertainty you see everywhere.
Host:Absolutely. And how's your firm dealing with the the change to remote work and and how are you dealing with the work still with the clients on sites?
Sean:Yeah, so that's actually been as much as you can say some things like this is success, right? I think for our discussions today I'm going to be positive because think having a positive attitude is important. But I also want to make sure we say there's a lot of people that are going to become, if they haven't already become seriously ill and some people are easily going to lose their lives over this. So I don't want any of my positive attitude to trivialize the very nature of what this is. But I think having a positive attitude and looking at the bright side and what opportunities are as important for this. We've been looking at our response to this essentially unprecedented event in sort of a three part approach because you've got to break it apart into something that you can get your arms around. You know, first and foremost we're looking at, well what do we need to do to best ensure the safety of our professionals?
Sean:That includes effectively people and their families, right? Cause if professionals get ill, families get ill. That whole thing unwinds the same thing extends very quickly to our clients. So we moved to a work from home model very quickly. You know, once you've got that basic safety issue, reasonably taken care of, not perfected, but regionally taken care of, then we're talking about, well how do we adapt now that people are in their homes, can we continue to function and how's that gonna work? So what technology are we employing as a business to allow the nature of the work that we do that is usually in normal traditional office spaces and in client spaces. How does that work in a, in a world where face to face contact isn't prudent. And then once we've gotten that stabilized into a functional level, then we start talking more nearness about what does that mean to the longer term business here in the mirror, the mid and long term of opportunities and, and to make sure that the clients continue to get their needs met. That's the important part as well.
Host:Absolutely. And especially in your sector, which is so critical because it is essentially critical infrastructure and an essential role dealing with water, water pipe, you know, water networks ensuring that people have continual, uninterrupted access to clean water. That we're dealing with water management properly. I mean these are things which are, they need to be stepped up. Not this is when you put the pedal on the gas instead of slowing down.
Sean:Equally true when it comes to power, telecommunications and oil and gas, other aspects of the businesses that we serve in terms of critical given infrastructure just as true.
Host:Absolutely. I mean this is, this is really where the value of what you do comes into play because people relying on those public services to stay active and open. I mean I, for one when I went into the grocery store and I noticed all the water, you know, flying off the shelves and my mind was like, well, you know, this is the water systems are staying on. But then the thought crossed my mind, what would happen - God help us - What would happen if there was some lapse or breakdown in our critical infrastructure, like our power, like our water systems and what would that mean for communities and for regions and being able to pivot to a work from home model, a remote, you know, socially distant model while still enabling the clients that you have in the water space and in, in the public infrastructure space to get their job done. That an in such a short time. I think that's the most amazing thing that you're able to pivot so quickly is, is really impressive. And, and, and must be, you might be you know, writing, writing the manual as you, as you live it.
Sean:Yeah. I'm, I'm afraid to get too cocky with that because the universe has a way of humbling people that get that way. You know, it, it hasn't been perfect, but it's been pretty good. I will tell you we have, we didn't, we didn't make up how to respond to this overnight. Right. There were things that we had in place. Not, I wouldn't say that we anticipated this kind of an event cause we didn't. But from a business practice standpoint, we engage in something called business continuity planning where we're really more looking at what happens if the professionals can't in the Kansas City office couldn't come to work because there was a fire in the building that day. But what if there was an earthquake in Los Angeles and the professionals couldn't get into that office. And that day our business continuity plans talk about how are we going to respond if that happens.
Sean:We weren't really thinking about it from the standpoint of everybody in every office globally needs to work remotely. But as it's happened, as it happens, the things that, that we had put in place to mitigate these risks have served us very well in terms of remote working tools and network connectivity. We use a lot of video conferencing. We used it before on people's individual machines. Well that actually serves, there's no substitute for face to face contact, but it served us very well. So when I look at things like things, again, things that we didn't anticipate to be used in this, but our, our strategic plan talks about working in new ways, being rapidly evolving and highly innovative. We were really thinking about that from the standpoint of business disruption and how businesses changing evolve over time. When I look to what this has resulted in the need for us to do, those things are just as equally important as we respond to this crisis as opposed to just changes in business.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think the the important lesson there is regardless of the size of the firm doing that business continuity planning doing that crisis management exercise and having a plan in place and being able to have something to rely on in cases like this is so critically important. And out of curiosity, how, I mean, how, if you, if, if you can go into detail on this, I'm not sure, but you know, how, how frequently does Black and Veatch reassess over time It's continuity plan in, your experience, you know, is it the kind of thing which was done on an annual basis, biannual or sooner so you can keep, you know, keep that fresh.
Sean:Yeah, there are aspects of it that I probably shouldn't share with you or couldn't share with you, but this is a fair question to ask. And it so happens that I am responsible for this business continuity process within the water business anyway. And we look at it yearly, every year and we look at what did we say last year and what would our response be given the tools, systems, practices and demands we have in front of us. And if the event happened this year, what would be different? Our offices changed. Our needs changed. Digital risks can change. So it doesn't, once you have something in place, it doesn't take a lot to update it and it's proven to be pretty important to us.
Host:Yeah. I guess the main lesson is to get something in place and then just don't put it on a shelf but, but keep it out and refresh it once in a while so that you can quickly pivot and move to a, you know, put it in action. So that, that's really important for I think at all executives understand the importance of that. So I mean, from an internal perspective, it seems that you had a plan in place, you're able to act on it from the external side, the client facing side. How has this impacted or, or created opportunities potentially to apply your expertise into areas related to really the situation right now with the, with the pandemic, not just healthcare of course, because this is widespread. There are many other areas where, where you know, agencies and, and, and utilities and public sector clients need help.
Sean:Yeah. I would say there's probably a, what comes to mind anyway as a sort of a two part answer to your question, there's the ability to work with your clients, which are our long-term business partners. These are entities and people that we've worked with for a long time on these critical human infrastructure issues. Their needs are changing as well. What's coming at them is coming at them very quickly, both in terms of real technical and delivery challenges and the public perception issues. We're working with a lot of water entities that are having to go out while having to not having to choosing to go out and be very public saying, don't worry, your water system is not at risk. This is not a waterborne illness. It doesn't represent a risk of disruption of service. There is no real risk of that, but the public procedure to be when it becomes a problem for those clients, so working with them to help understand what that means to how the communicate it is useful. We've been sharing some of our tools and practices with them because we are pretty good at working remotely because we travel. A lot of our business people travel across different sectors. Our clients don't always have that same structure. So their ability to work remotely and be dispersed is different than ours is. We've talked a little bit with some of the clients about how to adapt in near term and being remote because not all of them have the IT systems in place to do this kind of thing.
Host:Oh no, I was just going to save that. That, you know, that kind of goes to the idea that we always say if, of course a normal times of you know, engineer's and their client, that relationship, it's that trusted advisor relationship. It's not always just you know, the direct day to day of either designing or maintaining or acting in support of a utility and making sure that things work on time. It's also providing that leadership, that experience and best practices to help their clients understand and approach problems with solutions. So that's, I think that's a good example of that.
Sean:And those who had been a lot of our initial conversations, not all by any means, but a lot of our initial conversations with clients talking about, well, what, what has this crisis to you as an, as an, as a client, as a different business? What does that done? What new challenges is it causing you to have to face, you know, in some cases we're going to have solutions to that. In some cases we're going to help you work for your solutions to that. Some of those are relatively simple. Some of them are not.Host:In certain circumstances like this. And I think you put it very well that it's managing perception and it's helping the clients understand the best way to communicate something that you're fighting. The idea that PR perception becomes reality and people might react incorrectly in crisis situations. Largely have you seen an impact from you helping your clients communicate the fact that you know, things are gonna happen. You know, things are still going up. You turn the tap water is still going to happen. You don't have to worry. That doesn't involve water. You know, has that seen success in your mind?
Sean:I think so. I think most of our clients were reasonably well along the way to solving those issues. I don't know that that was the most pressing issue facing them. I think for most of our clients, the more pressing issues are how do they maintain business continuity. The issue of public perception is real. It very much is real, but it probably was not as much of a threat to their business as the disruption of not being able to work in the same way as they were used to working with working under I think is probably a bigger threat. Absolutely. And then some instances, you know, if you're, if those clients is, supply chains are disrupted, that kind of thing. That's, that's a much more, that's a much more serious challenge. You know, and it's causing some, some new things altogether. Some new things that's not very specific, but we, we talk about one of the things as an example.
Sean:I mean there's, some of this is run of the mill and some of his brother mundane, but some of it's actually a little bit sort of potentially pretty exciting. You know, one of the things you keep hearing about is the testing, right? We talk about testing, well we, the news talks about testing for this virus and the number of test kits that are available and the duration of time it takes to get results. One of the things that public entities across world, not just the U S are looking at is how do we know when we've peaked? Right? That's a key question here. How do you know when you've peaked? And if you, if the metric for that is the number of tests you can run, but the test kits are limited and the analytical capacity is limited. Is there a different way of doing it?
Sean:But one of the things we were already working on is a business and still in an experimental stage where essentially data analytic side of sensors and I'm not a technology expert in this kind of thing, but we were looking at sensors that could be put in wastewater streams to test for certain pathogens. And with the idea being, could you test for the presence and concentration of pathogens in a wastewater stream? And when we apply that kind of concept today, what if we were able to take that same technology, apply those sensors to wastewater streams and be able to track the presence and quantity or relative presence of this pathogen, COVID-19, the virus in a wastewater stream that would eliminate the need for the public health agencies to have to go test every single person to then go know what, what is the path? Are we peaked on a curve or not, because at least use that wastewater stream data to say has a given location peaked? It wouldn't tell you anything about individuals, but it might help you make good public health decisions at a city or state level. That's still in development. You know, we're not looking - I don't think it's realistic we'll say, we'll roll that out tomorrow. It's not that kind of thing, but it's a real technology. So as we were already working on that we've converted to see, can we apply it to this?
Host:That's a, that's a great example of the use of and the importance of data. And it's not just the collection of the data, but it's, it's just the interpretation and how can you apply different technologies that are being developed to different challenges. And that would be, you know, I could, I could immediately see how useful that would be for a governor or for, you know, FEMA or the CDC to get a better regional or, or scatter a map of, of potential concentrations of a pathogen. Not just COVID-19, but anything. If you're able to use those sensors and leverage that data in a way where you can assist policy makers making decisions it's a perfect example of applying a technology to a different problem, and adapting it to meet it.
Sean:Yeah. Other examples like that where we're sort of looking at things that we were already trying to put in place. Things were already exploring, you know, something else we were trying to do. I was telling you earlier about the, the company focused on being rapidly evolving and looking at that from a different way of being a disruptor in the business. We've got something we call our incubator and we use that as a way to try to draw out new ideas, whether they're directly connected to our core businesses or whether there potentially somehow tangential to that. And using that to find partners that are, again, not necessarily part of our normal supply chain to see could they come up with something clever and interesting that disrupts a given business that comes up with a new idea. We've got some press releases out now actually that are reflective of this. Trying to find, are there other partners that have ideas about how, some idea that they have that could improve our, our society's ability to deal with this virus.
Host:Yeah. I see that front and center on your website with the ignite X code 19 response accelerator as, as,
Sean:And our growth accelerator. We can put money into that and find ways to collaborate.
Host:Absolutely. And that's, that's, that's the power of just, you know, getting, I, it's great to see because a firm like yours can can play that pivotal role of connecting someone with a good idea and turning that into action. And it's a good example of the private sector innovation kind of, you know, playing a large role into responding to situations like this because you can move quicker. And you can present solutions faster than, you know, let's say the government would be able to and you'll be able to provide the government the solution that they might've been looking for and not even knowing that they actually needed. So that, that is great.
Sean:One of the other things we're looking to do here is to see how we can in a more traditional sense probably, but how we can be a part of helping mitigate one of the potential real risks that we're facing from a healthcare industry and standpoint. And that is you see the news for New York city and none of this is critical of New York city that are facing a huge wave of numbers coming at them. But you see the news stories that have a hospitals and emergency rooms jammed with people and people lined up in hallways. They're just absolutely being overwhelmed with the number of cases coming in. Both have terms of COVID potential COVID-19 patients plus our normal load of people that are just sick for other reasons. Somebody breaks their arm, that kind of thing. You know what, what we find, I think we're seeing is that the healthcare systems understandably, are not set up.
Sean:The physical infrastructure is not set up to deal with the numbers of people you have to triage to make that work. And also you have a secondary risk when you put that many people in proximity, even ones that are coming in for a different reason may end up becoming infected due to the proximity of the people. So is there a way to look at creating these modular temporary hospital setups? We were looking at that right now. Modular, rapid modular health system where we could go essentially augment existing health systems, hospitals and put a, you want to think of it like a treatment diagram, a flow diagram, put a module for additional physical infrastructure to allow for triage ahead of the hospital emergency room to alleviate some of that difficulty. That's something that we're working with some of our private partners and potentially in government agencies with to see if there's an opportunity there to go provide that assistance because we have the infrastructure experience, building experience and process and technology experience to help in those arenas.
Host:And that's, that's something which is going to be I think, increasingly important, not just in this circumstance but in, in as, especially from the policy side in Washington, we start talking a lot more about resilience in term of in terms of essentially everything, social infrastructure, physical infrastructure, responding to potential disasters, manmade or natural and having that capability to assist you know, public health in responding quickly it could help change the way that we respond to future disasters which is of critical importance.
Sean:And I think your point about responding quickly really is one of the key pieces. Any of these entities could decide that they need additional triaged capacity ahead of a given medical facility, but normal practices would take years to get that put in place. We don't have years to get that put in place. You know, if this is going to be effective and mitigate the risks to people in a system that could easily become overwhelmed with patients, it's going to have to be done quickly.
Host:It's going to be interesting coming out of this and, and kind of looking ahead in the crystal ball about how Congress and policymakers are going to be looking at this. I mean there's talk of course about the committee that's already been drawn up, but the relevant agencies that deal with our industry, especially in the House side with Transportation and Infrastructure, they have jurisdiction also over FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers. It's going to be interesting to see how they, how this opens their eyes to these different aspects of the need to move quickly, to move rapidly. And what kind of systems are in place or could be in place and to create the flexibility for companies like yours to be able to partner with agencies to really get these things from the testing phase or, or the drawing board into rapid implementation. And that'll be something that I'm sure we'll be looking at from ACEC National's perspective. And of course, you know, regionally from the state level and local. So that's, that's a really important thing. Is there anything else that you are kind of working on right now that could potentially be applied to this or any other kind of situation of national concern?
Sean:I think the thing comes to mind for me at the moment in response to that question probably has more to do with the longer term implications of what this pandemic is going to teach us all about how position, how to prepare, how to be able to respond to something that you didn't see coming. Because again, certainly there are people that have been warning globally about this type of a pandemic, but that's been going on for a long time. What is the opportunity for us as a business but for society at large and for our clients as well to look at, okay, what can we learn from this and what would we put in place to allow us to be flexible and responsive and resilient? That resilience discussion is probably one that I think will play very strongly. It will be very important for our clients in the future and for us as well as a business. Right? Absolutely. A lot of what we did, it hasn't been perfect, but it's, it's served us pretty well and having the ability to arrange yourself in a way that provides resilience is probably going to be increasingly important and better understood moving forward.
Host:Yeah, I mean today's emergency is tomorrow's kind of manual for best practice too. So the work that's being done now, like I said, it might not be perfect, but it's working can be the testbed for a future response, which is know critically important for everyone. From the public sector, you know, policy side down to the people who are going to be receiving the the care where there's going to be, you know, health care or, or disaster recovery or, or what have you.
Sean:And even if we take it outside the realm of public health and just think back to the providers of infrastructure, you know, the, the power generation, the telecommunication providers, water providers, all that kind of thing. The, the cost of providing resiliency measures for yourself and you can do it upfront before there's a crisis can be quite a lot less expensive than dealing with the crisis where it prevents you from operating.
Host:Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Sean:We'll see an improved understanding of that and then increased willingness to spend reasonable amounts of money to achieve better resilience.
Host:Absolutely. And, and, and knowing the past work that was done in previous, previous legislation on the Hill moving towards that the pre-disaster mitigation work you can lower the cost. It's always cheaper if you can do it on the front end than if you're forced to do it on the back end and if the engineering industry and firms like yours can get in on that conversation at the start, help shape that policy work, it can lower the burden for taxpayers and speed up the process. And it's that focus on pre disaster mitigation, which is so important.
Sean:I agree. Very much agree.
Host:Well, Sean I really do appreciate you coming on the show. I think that your perspectives both the firm-wide from Black and Veatch and then also individually from your position in the firm in the public public sector side and the water side is critically important for, for our audience and for our members to hear. I would say enjoy a nice weekend coming up. I hope you can get outside a little bit. I, it's a, it's a daunting challenge these days with, with separation - social distancing.
Sean:Yup. Well we'll, we'll find a way, right? There's way to do that. Able to get outside enough to stretch our legs and keep our bodies. Well, I appreciate the ability to talk to you today and your listeners on this podcast. I think it's an important discussion to be having at the level of our industry and I think there are meaningful things we can learn from this and take forward to make it to improve society in general at large.
Host:Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there is a, there is a, there is a very bright silver lining in the storm cloud. And I think that together industry-wide, we can learn and we can improve from this and, and come out stronger for it. And, and the work that you guys are doing at Black and Veatch is definitely helping to make that a reality. Keep us apprised of any new developments. We'd love to have you back on but thank you so much.
Sean:Very welcome, Jeff. Thank you. Thank you.

ACEC Coalitions Update

Engineering Influence sat down with Matt Murello and Kevin Peterson to get an update on ACEC Coalitions.
Transcript:
Host: Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a Podcast by the American Council of Engineering companies. Today we are very happy to bring you an coalition update and to give us an update on what's happening in coalitions we welcome coalitions Chair, Kevin Peterson. He's president and CEO of P2S Incorporated out of long beach, California and coalition Chair-elect, Matt Murello, president of Louis S. Goodfriend and Associates. He's out of Chester, New Jersey. So welcome to you both and one of who, kind of start off with a update on advocacy and the coalitions, what's happening in advocacy.
Kevin: Thank you, Jeff. This is Kevin. And currently we're developing our 2020 coalition advocacy agenda in consultation with the ACEC advocacy and external affairs department. We're happy to report that our coalitions continue to be strong contributors to the ACEC PAC. Last year we were represented 55% of the total PAC dollars from our members, up a couple percentage points from the previous year.
Host: And that's really good news. The PAC is one of our strongest tools to advocate our position so that is good news. From the membership side of the coin, where are things looking at coalitions?
Matt: Thanks Jeff. This is Matt Murello. And so every year, one of our coalitions or sometimes too, we have a recruitment drive, which is steered by the the ExCom of that coalition. And this year we started a new drive for the geo professionals coalition in November, netted 16 new members. And we also implemented a recruitment drive for both CAMEE, COPS and Land Development, which got us six more community volunteers. So we're looking forward to continuing to increase our numbers. I believe we're up by another 2% this year. And continuing to spread the word of the value of coalitions.
Host: That's fantastic. That's, that's, that's key because membership into the coalitions, it's easier than people think. And we need to get the word out there for ACEC members that it doesn't take much to join. And recruitment efforts like that, recruitment drives are critically important to start getting more people involved. And one of the benefits one of the benefits once you are a member is education which is another big area that we're looking to work on. So what's happening with education sessions with coalitions and events?
Kevin: So let me, let me update you on what we did in the 2019 fall conference in Chicago and coalition sponsored seven education sessions. We had also had five member round tables during that conference. In terms of, in between conferences. At the end of this week we have our 2020 small firm coalition winter meeting, taking place in Dallas focusing on leadership at all levels. We expect that to be a very successful event and later this month we'll have our 2020 coalition winter member meeting that's going to be held February 27th and 28th in New Orleans. And it really will be exploring the future of design software technologies. And a lot of our coalitions are also doing ExCom meetings. At that meeting. So it should be a very successful event right after Mardi Gras.
Host: Ah, that's, that's a perfect time to be down there right after the party stops. When you can actually move around and registration, I understand us is now open for that winter meetings, is that correct?
Kevin: It is. And, and they can find the registration link on, on the ACEC website.Host: Fantastic. Publications are another area that we really focus in on. It's, it kinda builds off of the education piece. Have there been any updates on publications in the coalitions?
Matt: Yeah, there has. And you know, you hit the nail on the head when you talk about one of the distinct advantages to being a member of the coalitions and with all the coalitions being in one group a membership to any one of the coalitions allows you access to all of these documents. And if anyone from ACEC were to purchase them and were not a member of the coalitions, it would cost thousands of dollars. And the, the documents are constantly being updated since July 1st we have a seven new or seven documents, four that have been updated and three new ones. The new ones are come from our CASE and new Geoprofessionals Coalition on lessons learned as well as commentary of the ASCE design procedures and health and safety plan checklist. So this is a process that's always going. We usually have between five and 10 updated or new per year and we're continuing moving in that direction. We also have in November-December Engineering, Inc., we featured our coalition leaders talking about prospects in resiliency, changes in leadership and climate change. So we're, we're out there our leaders are out there and talking about industry trends.
Host: Yeah, that's a really good point Matt, because like you said, if you went off and you tried to source these publications on your own and you tried to buy them or, or just find them somewhere it would get expensive really quickly. And being a member of the coalitions gives you that amazing library of content that if you are a sole practitioner or a small firm and you're trying to get your leadership educated and you're trying to figure out, you know, different business strategies or contracts, you know, the coalitions just gives you a treasure trove of material that you can just get access to, which is just so beneficial.
Matt: Yeah. And Jeff, I mean, most of our most of our publications that come from the coalitions may be practice oriented. So you know, if they're for structural engineers or for the mechanical electrical group but a good chunk of them, I would say probably close to a quarter of them are business centered. So if you are, like you said, a small firm and you're looking for that HR document or you're looking for a basic on how to basic contracts and setting up a new office or some employee handbook issues, chances are somebody has already spent the time and capital in putting something that you might be able to at least make as a starting point as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel. And it's, it's an invaluable resource for coalitions we find.
Host: And then I guess the last part is operations and how everything's being structured. Have there been any operational changes within the the coalition structure to note?
Kevin: One thing to note is when we started out coalitions years ago, some of those were councils to begin with. And we decided late last year that we wanted to have our, a consistent branding across our coalition. So the ones that had council in their name, we've, we've officially now renamed them to coalitions. So coalitions will appear everywhere in our branding and counsel is now being put to put the rest. We also last year recognized Mike Snyder from Dewberry as a recipient of our sixth annual Coalition Distinguished Service Award. That's something that we give out every year at the fall conference.
Host: All right. So that was kind of the top list of materials and things going on with coalitions. Is there anything else going on you guys want to add? A kind of free fire zone here about coalitions or, or anything you want to get across to our audience? Being our, our the leaders of our ACEC coalitions?
Kevin: This is Kevin and I, I would just recommend that anyone who's a member of ACC and especially new members who join, if they have any questions related to coalitions that they please reach out and they can find our contact information on the website. They can also contact Heather at ACEC headquarters. We're more than willing to share some of our personal experience in dealing with coalitions and how it's benefited our own organizations.
Host: Wonderful. Well, I want to thank you both for taking some time out of your day. And thanks again for giving us an update on ACEC Coalitions. It's all good news across the board and we're looking at growth and expanding our footprint of our coalitions in 2020. And thank you for being on the show and look forward to having you on again soon.

An Interview with Rep. Bruce Westerman, P.E.

Engineering Influence welcomed Rep. Bruce Westerman (Arkansas-4) to the program to discuss his career in engineering and in Congress.
Transcript:
Host: Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. It's a pleasure to welcome Congressman Bruce Westerman to the show. Congressman Westerman hails from Hot Springs, Arkansas and represents the state's fourth congressional district in the House of Representatives. He currently serves on the Natural Resources Committee and as Ranking Member on the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House. Congressman Westerman graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor of science degree in biological and agricultural engineering. He is also a graduate of Yale University earning a master of forestry service degree or I guess master of forestry degree forestry. Yeah. which makes him doubly unique in Congress. He's not only an engineer, but he's also a Forester of which there are not many serving in the house right now. Pretty much just yourself, I believe. Just one. Thank you very much for coming onto the program.
Rep. Westerman:  Jeff, it's great to be with you and a real honor to get to be on an ACEC podcast and talk about engineering and how that's benefited me with my service in Congress. You know, I had a nearly a two and a half decade career in engineering before I came to Congress and really enjoyed that. I always tell people I like my job in Congress, but I could go back in and be an engineer tomorrow and be perfectly content.
Host:  Actually, I was here when you spoke to members of our senior executive Institute class last month here in DC about your background in engineering and how you've applied that to your work in Congress. And I think you made the comment of pretty much saying that, you know, members come up to you because you're an engineer and expect you to have answers on just about anything related to engineering. How has your professional work in the field of engineering helped you in your roles, both in your committee work and then also in the general work that you do as a member? And I believe you're also on the science committee previously how has that impacted your ability to be an effective Member?
Rep. Westerman: Being an engineer in Congress is you know, it's a, it's a small group of us that are up here. There's not many engineers and like we already said, there's only one Forester in the, in the House. So if you've got a particular area of expertise, people really want to seek that out, especially your, your colleagues because you know, they, they generally feel like they can trust you if you want to give them, give them information. But also being an engineer probably has some drawbacks because of things like our code of professional conduct where we're not expected or we're expected not to comment on things we don't have expertise in, whereas a member of Congress, you're expected to comment on everything. So I after my freshman term, I got voted the quietest member of our freshman class, and I always told them this because you've got two ears to listen and one mouth to speak with.
Rep. Westerman: So I'll try to try to be measured in what I say and try to be accurate in what I say. And of course Congress touches, touches everything from foreign policy to healthcare tax policy. And you really have to study and read a lot just to stay on top of the issues. But when those things come along, that engineering directly impacts it's great to have some history and background and the, the education and experience to be able to make pertinent comments on those those issues and add to the conversation. But I'll get asked to speak to a lot of engineering students around the country and I'll always tell them that the thing they probably don't realize now, but they'll will realize someday is that engineering is, is really glorified problem solving. You're learning a lot of science, a lot of math.
Rep. Westerman: You're getting all the tools in the toolbox to go out and solve problems. But what you really learn going through an engineering curriculum and what you learned doing engineering on the job is how to analyze issues, define the problem, come up with a plan implement that plan and solve a problem. That's beneficial. Whether you're in Congress, whether you're working in a corporation, working in your own business or whatever you do. Those problem solving abilities are very valuable to have. And I think that's the best thing that engineering gave me and prepared me for to come here and serve in Congress.
Host: That's really interesting point because one of the things that we talk about at ACEC and we're going to be doing a lot more with a new strategic plan that we just adopted on the role of engineering in society and engineer's not just as math side, the science side, but also the problem solving, the trusted advisor to clients of looking at a challenge and finding ways to innovative ways to solve those challenges and, and to apply their background and experience to, to those challenges. So that's a really interesting point. I do want to bring up the forestry side of things cause I'm a Penn State grad. We had a forestry program at Penn State. Not exactly Yale as far as, in terms of school, but I wanted to ask the question of how you got into and interested in forestry and where that kinda stems from.
Rep. Westerman: Yeah, it's kind of a unique combination, I guess having an undergraduate in engineering and a graduate degree in forestry. But I grew up in, in Arkansas, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where I still live today, beautiful area, lots of national forest, a lot of private forest. And the career that I had for two decades was working for an ACEC member engineering firm. And we specialize in the forest products area. So when people asked me about my engineering career, I basically say that if there's some process that takes a tree and make something out of it, then I got the opportunity to design one of those facilities during my career. So getting a forestry degree was very natural and beneficial in the the business that I was in because you always started with what's the resource, what, what resources available and, and what's the most valuable product we can make out of that resource and what kind of equipment and machinery best fits the resource to convert that resource into a product that can be sold in the marketplace. And plus, I've always loved the outdoors.
Rep. Westerman: My Sunday School teacher was a world war II veteran. He, he flew in the bloody 100th bomb bombing squadron and he was just a fantastic guy, but he was, he was in the first forestry graduating class at the university of Arkansas at Monticello where our forestry school is. And I think Mr. Colepepper inspired a love for the forest and the outdoors and always wanted to go to graduate school. So it just, it worked out very well from a career and a personal goal standpoint to go study about trees. And another example of how being here in Congress and being the only, only person in the house where a forestry education and background, I work a lot on forest policy. And you know, the federal government owns a 193 million acres of timberland that's just in the Forest Service, but you throw in the BLM and the park service and you're between 250 and 300 million acres of public forest land.
Rep. Westerman: You know, today we're seeing the extreme forest fires in California and there's a lot of work that could be just be done just on the forestry side. And I'm really excited about it because forests are the link between clean air and clean water, which gets into a lot of the things that we as engineers work on. And you know, forests are the natural carbon sequesters. They're the most - good forest trees, the most pragmatic approach we can have to clean environment. And it's the best offensive tool that we've got. So I'm doing a lot of work in the forestry side of things here in Congress. And you know, one thing that we're really looking at is this new concept of mass timber and it's a new building system that's been done in Europe for quite some time, but we can now build buildings up to 18 stories tall.
Rep. Westerman: At my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, they just completed two five story mass timber dormitories. They had already built a mass timber library storage building. So it, it does a lot of, lot of things for you. Number one, it uses you can use locally sourced materials. These materials. Wood is on a dry basis, is 45 to 50% carbon, so it creates a huge carbon sink. It's a great insulating product, so you can build these buildings where they're sustainable and they don't use as much energy to operate and maintain. So a lot of positives with things like, wood, but then there's a lot of more research that can be done. We could use wood as feed stocks for chemicals. That's good feedstock for nanoparticles. I just saw something the other day where they've come up with a nano material made from wood cellulous that can be put into concrete that reduces the amount of Portland Cement and actually increases the strength and durability of the, of concrete. So the, I think the sky's the limit on what we can do with wood, which is a good renewable resource. And again, it, it's the lungs of the earth and the kidneys of the earth that cleans the air and cleans the water.
Host:  And that's really an interesting point. And actually we covered the mass timber issue in our most recent private industry brief that Erin McLaughlin in our office puts together. And again, that was the change in December of 2019. The ICC loosened the restrictions to allow buildings up to 18 stories in height effective in 2021 compared to the limit of six stories and commercial structures currently. So that's, that's an interesting, that's an interesting nexus between the forestry side and the engineering side.
Rep. Westerman: As a result of those projects they're in, in Northwest Arkansas on the University of Arkansas campus, a company just up the road, Walmart, announced they're building a new corporate headquarters. Now you think about you know, the largest company in the world building a corporate headquarters, 15,000 people, there'll be housing. So it'll be like a small college campus. I think they told me three and a half million square feet, but they're going to build the whole facility out of Southern Pine mass timber grown and manufactured in Arkansas. So that's a great story to tell, not only from the environmental stewardship side, but these local economies for timber has grown or in rural areas. And it's a, it's a good story about how we can help the autonomy in rural areas and do something good for the environment at the same time. And there's a lot of other, I've been told that Microsoft, Adidas I think Google, there's a lot of major corporations that are looking to use more of this mass timber in there Buildings.
Host: You know, buildings like that would fit in perfectly in Seattle and, and a lot of the Pacific Northwest especially. I do want to stay with the whole idea of economic development, but shifting over to infrastructure. You serve as the Ranking Member on the Water Subcommittee and of course WRDA is probably the most, the big bill that subcommittee is going to be working on for the Congress. That's a critical bill for our ports, harbors, inland waterways, locks, dams, just all of that, not just the, the seaside ports like Charleston or Savannah, but also the interior - moving goods around the country. Now with a lot of the members who listen to the podcast, they're getting a lot of their news from CNN. They're getting it from Fox and they're not hearing everything that's going on. You know, at the granular level. Where does the WRDA bill stand right now and where do you see when you see as the prospects of getting that through?
Rep. Westerman: So we've got a good track record going on WRDA and we certainly don't want to disrupt that. I believe we've the past six years or maybe eight years, we've got a WRDA bill through Congress. I know the whole time that I've been here, we've got WRDA bills passed on a two year cycle and there seems to be bipartisan support to get a WRDA bill out next year. And I will say serving on T&I, and actually being the ranking member on water and environment subcommittee. I was very fortunate in this Congress, which seems to be highly partisan with, you know, the impeachment issues and everything else going on. We've got a pretty good track record so far on the water and environment subcommittee. We just got a bill passed off the floor to use the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to actually develop and improve harbors as it was set in place to do you know, nearly, you know, nine to $10 billion in that fund.
Rep. Westerman: But it wasn't getting used to maintain harbors and it was put strictly put in place for that purpose. So I'm glad to see we pass it off the House Floor in a bipartisan manner. I hope the Senate will take it up and get that signed into law. We also just out of Committee this week we passed the the, the loan fund for wastewater systems. And I think that's a great opportunity to go in and you know, have the funding mechanisms so that cities can, can borrow the money to repair these wastewater systems, which the, I believe it was American Society of Civil Engineers gave our wastewater infrastructure a D plus grade. And I know as I travel around in my district there's a lot of work that needs to be done on both wastewater.
Rep. Westerman: And potable water system. So we're, we're getting bills passed out of committee off the floor. Those, you know, it doesn't usually make Fox or CNN when you pass a water bill out of the House, but it makes a lot of difference across the country. And I feel very fortunate to be working on that. I'm really looking forward to working with the, the Subcommittee Chairman Grace Napalitano from California, Peter DeFazio, now the Democratic Chairman, and then Sam Graves who is the Ranking Member. We've got a commitment to, to get this word of bill done. And as you mentioned, it's very important to many parts of the country. You know, our navigable waterways took a beating in the flooding this past past spring and summer in my district and in many other places in the country. We've got a lot of work to do on that.
Rep. Westerman: There's a lot of work that needs to be done on again ports and harbors deepening channels and that sort of thing. So there's, there's no end of, of opportunities and good things that we can spend money on that are, that are good for the country. And I think part of the reason we have a federal government, you know, provide for the common defense and, and take care of interstate transportation systems and that's what T&I does. So those are the things we should be prioritizing and putting our funds towards because it helps grow the economy and and helps, you know, the country grow, which helps us be able to provide nice things and, and people to have jobs and find, make their own way through life. So excited about what we're doing on the, on the water subcommittee.
Host: And then I guess just to kind of wrap it up, I mean it, with everything going on in Washington, you know, it's so dominated the headlines by intrigue and pretty much inside the beltway, kind of partisan squabbles because it, you know, gets ratings. But you know, for your constituents and for members in the engineering profession out there who are listening and saying, okay, what's Congress doing? I mean, what, what message would you leave them with? As far as what Washington is doing and, and how things are, are looking at the end of the year and may shape up for for 2020?
Rep. Westerman: Well, right now I would, I wouldn't give Congress a very good grade on what we're doing. I mean, we're operating under a Continuing Resolution, which is been a huge pet peeve of mine since I've got here. If there's, if there's one thing I would, if I could change it and I've worked hard to try to change it that's to get us back to what I call regular order, where we do appropriation bills. We debate those bills in the open, we offer amendments on the floor, pass all 12 of them out of the House. And if the Senate would take those up and go through the same process, we know our fiscal year ends on September 30th every year. And we need a new budget by then. We know the timeline, we know what needs to be done. We're just not getting it done.
Rep. Westerman:  And that causes all kinds of problems. When you look at, we don't even have a Defense Authorization bill done this year. And, and that's one of the primary reasons to have a federal government is provide for the common defense. If, if we can't get that done, if we can't get a budget done we really should be ashamed of the job that we're doing here. Now we can talk about some positive things on T&I. There's some small things that we agree on and they're getting done. And in the big picture, the politics are getting way too much in the way. And with the 2020 presidential election coming up with all the talk about impeachment it's really taken the focus off for the job of Congress. We've still got a huge, huge issue with healthcare in this country.
Rep. Westerman: We've got huge issues with immigration we need to be addressing. But there are a lot of us that are working on those policies and we've got bills drafted and we're ready to go. But you just can't get it in committee. You can't get time on the floor. The USMCA, a trade agreement that would be great for our country has got bipartisan support. You know, Mexico is now our largest trading partner. So you'd have your first and second largest trading partners with a new agreement that would benefit farmers, benefit the whole country. And we can't get it on the floor for a vote. It could've passed two months ago with bipartisan support. So that's frustrating. But again, engineers are problem solvers and I keep looking at it, you know, how can I make a difference? How can we change this?
Rep. Westerman: And it, a lot of times it's a slow change. And a lot of times it takes changes in leadership. It takes changes in which party is in control. But I see light at the end of the tunnel and you know, in on the positive side of things is the economy's doing quite well. We could do, we could be doing better and we see pathways to make that happen and I want to continue working on that and using hopefully what I learned studying engineering and doing engineering for a couple of decades and applying that here in the United States House of Representatives.
Host: Well, Congressman, thank you very much. There's still a lot of work to do, but like you said, engineers are problem solvers and you're going to be here to help solve those problems. So really appreciate your time this morning and coming on the show and, and, and hope to have you on the future. And I guess today you have some votes and then you're out, right? The this is, this is the end of the week legislatively.
Rep. Westerman: Yeah. This is a fly out day. It's a you know, I love my job, but the happiest day of the week are when I'm heading back to Arkansas, back to the real world. And the people I grew up with, the people I love and the people I get to represent here in this this great job in the U S so we do have a vote today actually a vote on the impeachment inquiry. So I wish we were voting on a WRDA bill or something like that, but it is what it is. And you know, I look forward to continuing to work is a lot of the things that people don't see that are here in DC is that when most members of Congress are back in our districts, we're working as much there as we are up here in DC. It's a different kind of work. And with, I've got a large rural district, so I spend a lot of time on the road, but always enjoy getting back.
Host: Well, Congressman Bruce Westerman, thank you very much for being on the show. Again, this has been another episode of Engineering Influence from the American Council of Engineering Companies.