Infrastructure, Technology, and Innovation
For years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has published report cards on the performance and capacity of America’s public works. The findings were discouraging, with many “F” and “D” grades. In its latest Report Card, published in 2021, the ASCE noted some “incremental progress” in restoring US infrastructure: “For the first time in twenty years, our infrastructure is out of the D range.” The grades in 2021 ranged from B for rail transportation to D- for transit. Five categories (aviation, drinking water, energy, inland waterways, and ports) improved, while bridges declined since the 2017 report. Yet, “eleven categories were stuck in the D range, a clear signal that our overdue bill on infrastructure is a long way from being paid off.” Indeed, there was more work to be done.
The Biden administration response. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021)—often called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act—was labelled by the Biden administration as a “once-in-a-generation investment in our infrastructure and competitiveness.” Among the many wide-ranging and expensive ($1 trillion) investments, the Infrastructure law promised to (1) deliver clean water and eliminate lead service pipes, (2) ensure broadband internet services to more than 30 million persons and reduce prices for internet services for the disadvantaged; (3) rebuild thousands of miles of roads and bridges; (4) invest in clean, zero emission vehicles for public transportation; (5) make the largest investments in passenger rail, upgrade airports and ports; and (6) build a nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations.
In past decades, road building and other infrastructure bills had been passed with widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans. This time, nineteen Republican senators and thirteen Republican House members supported this landmark infrastructure legislation. But not everyone was pleased: Donald Trump strongly opposed the legislation and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican-Georgia), who opposed the bill, tweeted out the names and phone numbers of the thirteen House Republicans who supported it and labelled them “traitors.” She and a small group of her right-wing colleagues urged that those thirteen be stripped of their committee assignments.
Some Republican lawmakers who vocally opposed the Infrastructure Act turned around and bragged about all the federal infrastructure money coming to their state. Alabama, for example, received $1.4 billion to expand its high-speed internet, leading Senator Tommy Tuberville (Republican-Alabama) to brag on Twitter, “Great to see Alabama receive crucial funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts.” Tuberville voted against the law and President Biden couldn’t let that inconvenient truth pass by without comment. “All those members of Congress who voted against it suddenly realize how great it is, and they’re bragging about it,” Biden said.
Sources: 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, American Society of Civil Engineers, December 2020, https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2021-IRC-Executive-Summary-1.pdf. “Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal,” The White House, November 6, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/06/fact-sheet-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/. Brian Naylor and Deirdre Walsh, “Biden Signs the $1 Trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Into Law,” NPR, November 15, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1055841358/biden-signs-1t-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-into-law. Tony Romm, “They Opposed the Infrastructure Law. Now Some in the GOP Court Its Cash,” Washington Post, July 9, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/09/gop-spending-infrastructure-ira-biden/.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for decades, but with the launching of generative AI apps, like ChatGPT which debuted in December 2022, policymakers have become much more interested in understanding both the benefits and dangers of this rapidly developing tool. AI generally has been defined as “machine learning models developed through training on large volumes of data in order to generate content” in the form of images, text, and audio. Or, as the European Parliament puts it, “AI is the ability of a machine to display human-like capabilities such as reasoning, learning, planning and creativity.”
For years, thought leaders in the cyberworld have touted the advantages of artificial intelligence: AI can help avoid human error; it can be available 24/7; it can be a form of digital assistance instead of relying on human interaction; it can perform repetitive tasks; it can formulate unbiased decision-making; it can be deployed in risky, dangerous situations; it has a wide variety of applications in medicine and disease prevention, along with other promising developments.
But for years, leaders in the cyber world have warned against the excesses and the unregulated nature of AI. This one-sentence warning from the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit organization, has been signed by more than 350 AI scientists, executives, researchers and engineers: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which is part of the European Union’s digital strategy to “ensure better conditions for development and use of this innovative technology.” EU rules were first proposed in April 2021, setting up a classification system, according to the risks involved. The European Parliament’s priority is to make sure that AI systems in the EU are “safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly. AI systems should be overseen by people, rather than by automation, to prevent harmful outcomes.”
The EU rules will ban AI systems as “Unacceptable Risks” if they are considered a threat to people. Such unacceptable risks are (1) cognitive behavioral manipulation of people or specific vulnerable groups (for example, voice-activated toys that encourage dangerous behavior in children); (2) social scoring: classifying people based on behavior, socio-economic status, or personal characteristics (for example, systems allowing law enforcement to predict criminal behavior using analytics); and (3) real-time and remote biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition.
Then in late October 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order on AI, the most sweeping and comprehensive affecting this new industry. The Biden administration asserted that the Executive Order “establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more.” The administration stated that it had consulted widely with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the EU, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the United Kingdom, as well as ongoing discussions with the United Nations.
The Biden administration acknowledged that, despite the comprehensive nature of the Executive Order, that much still needed to be done the Congress, and done without delay. However, then came a change in administration. Immediately upon entering office, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order “eliminating harmful Biden Administration AI policies” that “hinder AI innovation and onerous and unnecessary government control over the development of AI.”
Sources: Laurie A. Harris, Artificial Intelligence: Overview, Recent Advances, and Considerations for the 118th Congress, Congressional Research Service, August 4, 2023, R47644, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47644; “What is Artificial Intelligence and How is It Used?” European Parliament, June 20, 2023, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200827STO85804/what-is-artificial-intelligence-and-how-is-it-used. “Statement on AI Risk,” Center for AI Safety, n.d., https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk (accessed October 24, 2023). “EU AI Act: First Regulation on Artificial Intelligence,” European Parliament, June 8, 2023, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence. Liz Landers and Luke Barr, “How Obama Helped President Biden Draft the AI Executive Order,” ABC News, November 3, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-helped-president-biden-draft-ai-executive-order/story?id=104608286. “President Biden Issues Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence,” The White House, October 30, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/10/30/fact-sheet-president-biden-issues-executive-order-on-safe-secure-and-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence/.“Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Takes Action to Enhance America’s AO Leadership,” The White House, January 23, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-takes-action-to-enhance-americas-ai-leadership/
Americans are outliers when it comes to measurements, clinging to the old Imperial system rather than the metric system. At one time in the 1970s, the American government experimented with the metric system, but it never caught on. Americans prefer miles (not kilometers), gallons (not liters), and Fahrenheit (not Celsius). In 1975, Congress enacted the Metric Conversion Act, which declared that the metric system was “the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce.” The law did not mandate conversion, noting that it was “completely voluntary.” It also developed a US Metric Board to help educate the American public and to implement a conversion.
Nearly every other country in the world has adopted the metric system. In fact, just three countries in the world—Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States—officially cling to the Imperial system. Not even the country most associated historically with the Imperial system—the United Kingdom—has stayed with it, although there are plenty of informal uses.
Ironically, the America system of money is based on 100s, a metric measurement. Thomas Jefferson proposed that American money be based on divisions of 100; thus, the United States became the first country in the world to “metrify” its coinage. Today, the euro, adopted nearly everywhere in Europe, is based on the metric system; even the British pound sterling is based on its own metric system, with 100 pence (pennies) per pound.
Why, in today’s nearly global acceptance of the metric system, would anyone object to the US joining the rest of the world? Historian Stephen Mihm argued that national pride is at stake. “The adoption of another country's weights and measures—or in the case of the metric system, the rest of the world's weights and measures—seems an infringement on national sovereignty. That the system in question has a long and distinguished history as a pet project of Francophile, cosmopolitan liberals probably doesn't help make it appealing to American conservatives.”
Source: Mihm quoted in Yoni Appelbaum, “Who’s Afraid of the Metric System?” The Atlantic, June 6, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/whos-afraid-of-the-metric-system/395057/.
Some 8.5 million locations in the US that lack access to broadband connections. Looking at their balance sheets, broadband companies like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and Charter Communications are reluctant to provide access to rural communities, with small populations, and the need for large investments to provide service to them. The lack of such service became particularly evident during the COVID pandemic.
In June 2023, the White House announced that $42 billion would be divided up among the states and US territories, making high-speed Internet access available universally by 2030. The funds—the largest ever spent on the Internet in the US—came out of the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, deemed the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. Nineteen states received allocations of over $1 billion, with these states receiving the most funds: Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
Along with the issue of access is that of broadband speed. In the most recent analysis, the United States ranked 9th in Megabits/second speed. Romania, Switzerland, Denmark, Thailand, and Chile led the list of having the fastest broad band speed.
Sources: Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw, “US to Spend $42 Billion to Make Internet Access Universal by 2030,” Reuters, June 26, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-detail-plans-42-billion-investment-us-internet-access-2023-06-26/. “Biden-Harris Administration Announces Over $40 Billion to Connect Everyone in America to Affordable, Reliable, High-Speed Internet,” White House, June 26, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-over-40-billion-to-connect-everyone-in-america-to-affordable-reliable-high-speed-internet/. Internet Speeds by Country, 2023,” World Population Review, n.d., https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/internet-speeds-by-country.
In 1990, some 37 percent of advanced semiconductor chips were manufactured in the United States; by 2020, the percentage had fallen dramatically to just 12 percent. Not only had production fallen, but the US lacked the capability to produce the most advanced chips in volume. Foreign competitors, particularly China, have invested heavily in this vital industry, fueled by government subsidies.
ASML in the Netherlands is the only manufacturer in the world making microchips that are essential to produce semiconductors. These microchips contain billions of transistors, making the chips faster, more powerful, and more energy efficient. ASML (for Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography) employs EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography to create the tiny circuitry found in computer chips, and its most recent tool, a High NA EUV, the size of a double-decker bus and costing $350 million, will help develop a new generation of even smaller and faster chips. The giant chip makers, TSMC in Taiwan, Samsung in South Korea, and Intel in the United States, rely on the ASML technology and products. Everything from smart technology found in automobiles and mobile phones, to augmented reality, and artificial intelligence rely on EUV technology. In 2024, an Intel facility near Hillsboro, Oregon, using High NA EUV technology, was under production and a major TSMC plant in Arizona was near completion.
One estimate finds that within the next decade, there will be a 53 percent increase in the demand for such semiconductor chips. For many policymakers in the US, these daunting facts showed how imperative it was to enact legislation boosting the US semiconductor industry.
In July 2022, through a rare bipartisan vote, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, and tax credits for chip manufacturing. To protect domestic competitiveness in this field, the CHIPS Act provided safeguards to ensure that those companies receiving federal funds could not build advanced semiconductor production facilities in countries that present national security concerns. As the Biden White House noted, “America invented the semiconductor, but today produces about 10 percent of the world’s supply—and none of the most advanced chips. Instead, we rely on East Asia for 75 percent of global production. The CHIPS and Science Act will unlock hundreds of billions more in private sector semiconductor investment across the country, including production essential to national defense and critical sectors.”
As Reuters noted, “The CHIPS Act will have a broad impact, bolstering US leadership in wireless technology, and CHIPS funding will benefit not only US chip manufacturers, but also U.S. universities, K-12 STEM educational programs, and regional hubs among other advancements in innovation.”
Sources: “The ‘NA’ in the name refers to numerical aperture – a measure of the ability of an optical system to collect and focus light. And it’s called High NA EUV because we’ve increased the NA from 0.33 in our NXE systems to 0.55 in EXE systems. The higher NA is what gives the systems their better resolution.” In Christine Middleton, “Five Things You Should Know About High NA EUV Lithography,” ASML, January 24, 2024, https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2024/5-things-high-na-euv; “EUV Lithography Systems,” ASML, n.d., https://www.asml.com/en/products/euv-lithography-systems. “Semiconductor Manufacturing by Country,” World Population Review, https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/semiconductor-manufacturing-by-country. “CHIPS and Science Act Will Lower Costs, Create Jobs, Strengthen Supply Chains, and Counter China,” The White House, August 9, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/09/fact-sheet-chips-and-science-act-will-lower-costs-create-jobs-strengthen-supply-chains-and-counter-china/. CHIPS is an acronym for “Creating Healthy Incentives to Produce Semiconductors.” Michelle Schulz, “Passage of the CHIPS and Science Act: What does This Mean for US Export Controls? Reuters, September 7, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/passage-chips-science-act-what-does-this-mean-us-export-controls-2022-09-07/.
The Global Innovation Index, co-founded in 2007 by Soumitra Dutta, dean of the Säid Business School at Oxford University, uses eighty indicators to track global innovation in over 130 economies. Dutta noted that “We are witnessing exponential progress in digital technologies and many fields of deep science. This is providing a boost to innovation across sectors and holds the hope of providing solutions to some of our world’s complex problems in climate, food, health and related challenges.” For the thirteenth year in a row, Switzerland was ranked as the most innovative of all the 130-plus economies surveyed; Sweden was ranked 2nd. The United States was ranked number 2 in 2022 but slipped to number 3 in 2023.
Sources: Global Innovation Index 2023: Switzerland, Sweden and the US Lead the Global Innovation Ranking,” Säid School of Business, Oxford University, September 27, 2023, https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/news/global-innovation-index-2023-switzerland-sweden-and-us-lead-global-innovation-ranking; Global Innovation Index Database, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), 2023, https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-2000-2023-section1-en-gii-2023-at-a-glance-global-innovation-index-2023.pdf.
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the largest technology trade association in North America, since 2018 has published a worldwide ranking of innovation. In its 2023 report, focused on 17 categories, encompassing 40 separate indicators. In these evaluations, the United States exhibited a decided leadership role. Looking at several categories, the US ranked number one in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, drones and advanced air mobility, and telehealth and telemedicine.
Source: “2023 CTA International Innovation Scorecard,” Consumer Technology Association, January 2023, https://cdn.cta.tech/cta/media/media/advocacy/scorecard/2023-cta-international-innovation-scorecard.pdf. Also earning plaudits from the CTA were Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the European Union
President Dwight Eisenhower was a firm believer in Research and Development (R&D) investments and knew that private industry could not bear the burden of such expenditures by itself. R&D basically covers three types of activity: basic research, applied research, and experimental development. Simply put, R&D has been described as the “generation of new knowledge.” It was up to the federal government and Republican Eisenhower to push for more federal expenditures. As journalist David Leonhardt observed, the “Eisenhower investment boom has no peer in US history, at least outside a major war.” He was able to be both a “fiscal conservative and a president who nearly tripled R&D spending” between the early 1950s and the early 1960s.
In 1964, the US government provided about two-thirds of all domestic R&D funds; by the 2020s, that federal contribution had slipped dramatically, with just 21 percent of R&D funds. Nearly all the remaining R&D funds were provided by private business. In 2021, federal R&D funds account for less than 1 percent of GDP.
As a percentage of GDP, the United States ranks fourth in the world, after Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan in investing money in Research & Development.
Note: The OECD defines gross domestic spending on R&D as “the total expenditure (current and capital) on R&D carried out by all resident companies, research institutes, university and government laboratories, etc., in a country. . .This indicator is measured in USD constant prices using 2015 base year and Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) and as percentage of GDP.”
Sources: “Gross Domestic Spending on R&D,” OECD, https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm (accessed October 30, 2023). Stephen James, “What is R&D? Its Role in Business and How It Relates to R&D Tax Credits,” ForrestBrown, October 13, 2009, https://forrestbrown.co.uk/news/what-is-r-and-d/; David Leonhardt, “Longer Commutes, Shorter Lives: The Costs of Not Investing in America,” New York Times, October 17, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/magazine/us-public-investment.html (accessed October 30, 2023). See, also, John Walsh, “The Eisenhower Era: Transition Years for Science,” Science 164 (3875) (April 4, 1969): 50-53, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1726957; Gary Anderson and Francisco Moris, “Federally-Funded R&D Declines as a Share of GDP and Total R&D,” National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, NSF 23-339, National Science Foundation, June 13, 2023, https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23339#:~:text=The%20ratio%20of%20U.S.%20research,funding%20sources%20for%20domestic%20R%26D.
During the first half of 2023, Tesla ranked as Number 1 (Model Y) and Number 2 (Model 3) in the worldwide EV market. The next four positions were held by the Chinese company BYD. Chinese companies held twelve of the twenty top spots in EV sales during this time. Chinese EV manufacturers are producing highly sophisticated, beautifully designed, and most importantly, affordable vehicles, that are rapidly filling markets throughout the world—except for the United States. In May 2024, the Biden administration imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs. President Biden justified the move to protect American jobs and market share, arguing that the Chinese “are flooding the market. It’s not competing—it’s cheating.” Indeed, the threat was real. Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley was “shocked” in a 2024 visit to China, seeing first-hand the extraordinary improvement in manufacturing, design, and features in Chinese EVs. Ford, which until very recently had been the second ranked EV producer (behind Tesla) in the United States, had been losing an estimated $36,000 on each of the 36,000 EVs it had delivered to its dealers during the third quarter of 2024. General Motors postponed plans for a $4 billion electric vehicle plant to be opened in Michigan.
The government of China has determined that the production of EVs would be a strategic investment, providing economic benefits as well as reducing air pollution and dependence on foreign oil. By 2022, the automobile company BYD had sold 1.85 million EVs, becoming the world’s second largest producer, behind Tesla; in 2023, BYD became the world leader in fully electric cars. Its best-selling EV, the Seagull, sells for around $11,000. Currently, the Chinese consumer can choose from almost 300 models; in addition, 80 percent of the top EVs sold in China are made by Chinese companies. Like Norway, China has offered a series of subsidies and tax breaks, both for the manufacturers of EVs and their customers, often making EVs cheaper than ICE vehicles. For BYD, the Chinese government had invested $2.6 billion from 2008 through 2022; the company was also given critical assistance from American investor Warren E. Buffet, who bought 10 percent of BYD in 2008, giving the company a critical infusion of cash. The central government also has invested in 760,000 public fast-charging stations and 1 million public slower-charging stations—more than the rest of the world combined. It also adopted a variation of the California zero-emissions mandate to eventually replace subsidies.
As journalist Joel Jaeger noted, “policies mandating 100 percent EV sales are the single most effective policy to drive the transition. Currently, sixteen countries including Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom, have some form of policy mandating 100 percent EV sales in 2035 or earlier.”
Sources: José Pontes, “World EV Sales Now 19% of World Sales!” CleanTechnica.com, August 2, 2023, https://cleantechnica.com/2023/08/02/world-ev-sales-now-19-of-world-auto-sales/; Mike Colias, “What Scared Ford’s CEO in China,” Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ford-china-ev-competition-farley-ceo-50ded461; Biden quote from Natalie Sherman, “Biden Hits Chinese Electric Cars and Solar Cells with Higher Tariffs,” BBC, May 14, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-69004520; David Shepherdson and Nathan Gomes, “Ford Cuts F-150 Lightning Production as EV Demand Softens,” Reuters, January 19, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-reduce-f-150-lightning-production-2024-01-19/#:~:text=Ford%20lost%20an%20estimated%20%2436%2C000,sales%20of%20gas%2Delectric%20hybrids; Keith Bradsher, “How China built BYD, Its Tesla Killer,” New York Times, February 10, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/business/byd-china-electric-vehicle.html; Joel Jaeger, “These Countries Are Adopting Electric Vehicles the Fastest,” World Resources Institute, September 14, 2023, https://www.wri.org/insights/countries-adopting-electric-vehicles-fastest#:~:text=The%20top%205%20countries%20with,%25)%2C%20according%20to%20our%20analysis.
Topping the list of EV adoptions is Norway, which in 2022 saw 87.8 percent of its new automobiles as EVs; in 2013, that figure was just 6.1 percent. Iceland is 2nd, with 56.1 percent new car adoptions (1.3 percent in 2013); Sweden is tied for 2nd with 56.1 percent adoption (0.7 percent in 2013); Denmark is 4th, with 38.6 percent adoption (0.3 in 2013), and Finland is 5th, with 37.5 percent adoption (none in 2013).
The United States comes in 21st place, with 7.7 percent EV adoption in 2022, with a 0.16 percent adoption in 2013.
But with the second Trump administration, electric vehicles were no longer a priority. Trump, two months before taking office for his second term, vowed to get rid of the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle purchases. His close adviser, Elon Musk, heartily agreed. “Take away the subsidies, it will only help Tesla,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. The elimination of the tax credit would most likely hurt General Motors, Ford, Rivian, and Stellantis—the weakest American rivals to Tesla. On January 20, 2025, his first day in office, Trump cancelled the EV tax credit. Edmunds.com, an automobile purchasing guide, warned that “the potential elimination of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles by the Trump administration—without another form of incentive to replace it—could derail the trajectory of EV sales in the United States.”
Sources: Executive Order, “Unleashing American Energy,” White House, January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy; /Kate Gibson, “Trump’s Win Could Sharply Raise the Cost of Electric Vehicles. Here’s Why,” CBS News, November 15,2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-elon-musk-donald-trump-ev-tax-credit/.
In 2014, Vice President Joe Biden said that if he blindfolded someone and took her to La Guardia Airport in New York, she would think she was in “some third world country.” Indeed, for years, American airports had been neglected, with private and public funds not keeping up with demand and with needed improvements and repairs. International surveys, like the one conducted by Skytrax, showed, year after year, that American airports were being outclassed by new and improved airports in Asia and Europe. Since 1999, Skytrax, an airline and airport review and ranking consulting firm based in London, has been conducting customer satisfaction reviews on some 550 airports throughout the world. Its rankings are based on a wide variety of factors, including the airport’s website, getting to and from the airport, attitudes of airport staff, cleanliness of restrooms, lost luggage services, children’s play areas, WI-FI access and speed, and perceptions of airport security and safety.
The best America could do was the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, ranking 18th worldwide. The best airports were Changi Airport (Singapore), Doha Hama International Airport (Qatar), Tokyo Haneda International Airport (Japan), Seoul Inchon International Airport (Korea), and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (France).
Other American airports in the 2023 ranking were Houston Hobby International Airport (Number 32); Houston George Bush Airport (35); Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky (46); San Francisco International Airport (48); New York La Guardia International Airport (57); Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport (62); Los Angeles International Airport (63); Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (66); Denver International Airport (71); New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (88); Phoenix International Airport (94); Boston Logan International Airport (96); and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (99).
Sources: “Biden Compares La Guardia Airport to ‘Third World,’” New York Times, February 6, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/nyregion/biden-compares-la-guardia-airport-to-third-world.html. Skytrax World Airport Awards, 2023, https://www.worldairportawards.com/worlds-top-100-airports-2023/.
When it comes to urban transportation, in local customer surveys, no city in the US comes in the top ten. The best is New York City (ranking 15th among major cities worldwide) and Chicago (17th).
Berlin ranks 1st, with 97 percent customer satisfaction; Prague is 2nd (96 percent); Tokyo is 3rd (94 percent), Copenhagen is 4th (93 percent) as well as Stockholm (93 percent). New York, at 15th, has a customer satisfaction rating of 83 percent Chicago, ranking 17th has a rating of 82 percent.
Source: “19 Cities with the Best Public Transport in the World—According to Locals,” Timeout, April 3, 2023, https://www.timeout.com/travel/best-public-transport-in-the-world.
Early in the Obama presidency, Congress passed the $797 billion stimulus package which included a plan for federal high-speed rail investments. Major US cities were to be linked by high-speed rail. By January 2012, the Obama administration had put in more than $10 billion in federal money for high-speed rail development. But some state and local officials were balking. The governors of Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Florida (Rick Scott), and Ohio (John R. Kasich)—all Republicans—gave back billions of federal dollars, denouncing the programs as creations of big federal government and as economically unfeasible.
In California, the only high-speed rail project that actually began construction ran into major problems. The high-speed train project, an 800-mile system, was expected to be completed by 2020, but has been pushed back to 2033. In the meantime, by 2040, the population of California is projected to be over 54 million, another 17 million more than in 2010. In addition, the cost of the project has now tripled, to nearly $100 billion. Another $202 million was pumped into the project through the Infrastructure Act in September 2023. The project is limping along, way over budget, experiencing maddening delays.
By contrast, high-speed rail service, “bullet trains,” are common in other advanced countries. Railway Technology reported that the fastest trains operating today are in service in China, Germany, France, Japan, Morocco, Spain, South Korea, and Italy. Not in the United States, where the closest thing to a high-speed train would be Amtrak’s Acela, operating between Washington, DC, New York, and Boston. Amtrak planned to spend $2.3 billion to replace its aging Acela fleet and improve railway tracks, but the project is already three years behind schedule. Amtrak was contracted with the French rail manufacturing firm Alstom to develop and manufacture twenty-eight new high-speed train sets, but have run into delays because they have not met Federal Railroad Administration safety requirements. Finally, in January 2024, on the fourteenth try, the new trains passed the federal safety tests. The new Acela service is scheduled to begin operating in June 2024, with trains running at 257 km (160 miles) per hour, much faster than the older Acela trains. Amtrak will be receiving $22 billion from the Infrastructure Act.
So confident in its high-speed network of trains, the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV), the French government in April 2022 banned short-haul domestic flights in the country. The aim was to curb France’s carbon emissions from aviation, and despite complaints from businesses in the aviation sector, the program is moving ahead with government funding and support, and other European countries are looking at the possibilities of greater reliance on short-haul train travel rather than airlines. Throughout Europe, passenger rail service is booming, with a 50 percent jump between 2021 and 2022.
Sources: David Shepardson, “US Passenger Railroad Amtrak High-Speed Acela Program Facing New Delays,” Reuters, October 3, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-passenger-railroad-amtrak-high-speed-acela-program-facing-new-delays-2023-10-03/; Peter Nilson, “French Short-Haul Ban Only Possible Thanks to High-Speed Rail,” Railway Technology, September 27, 2022, https://www.railway-technology.com/features/french-short-haul-ban-only-possible-thanks-to-rail/?cf-view; Paige McClanahan, “In Europe, Trains Are Full, and More Are on the Way,” New York Times, January 4, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/travel/europe-new-trains.html. “The 10 Fastest High-Speed Trains in the World,” Railway Technology, https://www.railway-technology.com/features/the-10-fastest-high-speed-trains-in-the-world/?cf-view.
Over thirty years ago, economist Anthony Downs highlighted the problems of automobile congestion in cities and suburbs, with a book titled Stuck in Traffic. A second edition came out in 2004, appropriately titled, Still Stuck in Traffic. In this second edition, Downs noted that “traffic congestion has almost surpassed bad weather as a malady that is universally discussed but rarely improved through public policies,” and that “this constantly intensifying nature of congestion is extremely frustrating to the millions of citizens who daily endure it. They keep asking, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something about this misery?’”
Building more roads is not the solution, but raising gasoline taxes, raising the prices on city parking lots, congestion price and toll schemes, increasing funding for public transportation are met with little enthusiasm.
In what cities do people spend most of their time stuck in traffic? In a 2022 study, INRIX Research determined that people would be trapped in traffic for 156 hours a year in London. Chicago was second worst (155 hours), then came Paris (138 hours). Boston was 4th (134 hours), New York City was 8th (117 hours), and Philadelphia was 10th (114 hours). Surely, Los Angeles couldn’t be too far behind these top ten.
Sources: Anthony Downs, Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1992); Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2004), vii. “2022 Global Traffic Scorecard,” INRIX Research, https://inrix.com/press-releases/2022-global-traffic-scorecard-uk/.
The US received high marks in terms of road connectivity, ranking Number One in road connectivity, according to a survey conducted by the World Atlas. Altogether, there are 4.2 million miles of highway in the US, including Hawaii and Alaska. Just 1 percent of the road network is made up of the Interstate Highway system; but that 1 percent carries 25 percent of all auto and truck traffic. Along with the Interstate system are 175,000 miles of major roadways, maintained by both the federal government and state governments. About 77 percent of the American roadway is maintained by local governments and 19 percent is maintained by state governments.
The World Economic Forum, through its Executive Opinion Survey, asked 14,000 business leaders in 144 countries to rate the quality of their country’s road system. Just one question was asked: rate the roads on a scale of 1 (underdeveloped) to 7 (extensive and efficient by international standards). In the most recent World Economic Forum survey, the road quality in the US was given a score of 5.5 (out of 7), and the US ranked 17th in the world in quality of its roads. One estimate was that 200,000 miles of major highways were in mediocre condition and in need of critical repair and that nearly 8 percent of bridges were structurally deficient.
Ranking highest in road quality were Singapore, Netherlands, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan, and Austria.
Sources: “Top 10 Countries with the Best Road Connectivity,” World Atlas, n.d., https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/top-10-countries-with-the-best-road-connectivity.html#:~:text=Road%20Network%20In%20The%20United,one%2Dquarter%20of%20the%20traffic. GlobalEconomy.com, https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/roads_quality/; data from World Economic Forum.
Despite the infusion of billions of dollars from the Infrastructure legislation, the United States still has far to go in comparison with other OECD countries. Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Germany top the list of overall infrastructure. The United States comes in 11th place.
Note: Overall infrastructure score includes transport, telephony, and energy. First and second place would have gone to Singapore and Hong Kong, but they were left out of these rankings.
Source: “Ranking of Countries According to the General Quality of Infrastructure,” Statista, n.d., https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countries-according-to-the-general-quality-of-infrastructure/ (accessed October 30, 2023).