Rebuilding and Renewing America - What's Next

NEXT STEPS: REBUILDING AND RENEWING AMERICA IN COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY

• This legislative agenda has attracted the support of a wide variety of Congressional co-sponsors, national associations, and industry leaders. It is vital that individuals and communities around the country engage in these issues as well to support national efforts.
• At the local level, stakeholder coalitions, if active and concerned about these types of issues, are incredibly important for building the broader public understanding of infrastructure challenges. Groups as diverse as organized labor, the local chamber of commerce, environmental groups, and other citizen groups all have something to gain from coming together on these types of investments. These groups have successfully passed local measures to rebuild and renew infrastructure important to those local communities. By building trust at the local level, stakeholder coalitions can renew trust in national efforts as well.
• Communities across the country are struggling with these infrastructure challenges water, transportation, the need for renewable energy, the challenges of climate change, and our industrial legacy but so far national candidates have not faced these questions squarely. Any local efforts should be considered in a national context, given the prominence of the Presidential campaigns. It is time that communities demand the Presidential candidates respond to the nation¡¦s infrastructure challenges. There is sufficient interest in communities across the country to hold a national conference on these topics a national conference of sufficient prominence to capture the attention of the Presidential candidates and provide a venue for their views on these grave challenges.