infrastructure initiative. thank you for the opportunity. [applause] a quick minute break and we are running ahead of schedule.

everyone in this room is so incredibly efficient. ♪♪

[applause] >> very excited to be here these past the first test. i am 2024 president of the american society. i want to thank our distinguished guests for joining us today.

we have rick larson ranking member of the house transportation and infrastructure. i am very excited to continue to work together historic infrastructure investments congress passed and they are working to ensure implementation make sure of the success. we published yesterday in the infrastructure investment need to act on federal investment will protect the industries from losing more than $1 trillion in

economic output and help avoid more than 600 billing dollars and gives american families an additional 550 billion in disposable income. i could use that, i don't know about you guys. 237,000 american jobs for the same. the right path for improving critical infrastructure network but our work is not done. we regard to keep this economic ecosystem an attractive investment payment ranging from reauthorization of other infrastructure investment displacements as we move into the 119 congress for the house and transportation committee has

worked in a bipartisan manner to achieve infrastructure goals. most recently and you could help us and we look ahead to the next congress, will keep considerations and reauthorization and reauthorization's fyi ja. >> i appreciate the opportunity with congressman larson who has been a great partner the roads and bridges should bring people together so as we look forward trying to build upon policing for decades working in a bipartisan manner to ensure we

put policies in place for water resources in a foreign infrastructure we need to make sure we are building upon the mistakes that were made. as with back over the infrastructure bill, there's no question it is critical we need to look at three important things. number one is looking at i i ja 70 to 80% to the life of the bill but was only executed around 20% of the actual dollars so understanding, it here we have infrastructure urgency and product development and delivery system that reflects that urgency today, seven years and three months.

seven years and eight months for airport project in five years and three months for the average transit project today. number two is making sure we are focused on the right infrastructure investment for the federal government. ... >> make sure we are fully there. the component is making sure we're working with our state and local governments to build the capacity of those things that don't have a federal nexus or

interest to wear those things don't fall off the radar, fall off the table and our actual address. those are three key things we need to do moving forward and begin looking for george with congressman larsen to address those. >> thanks again for the chance to be here and answer a few questions about the next bipartisan infrastructure law. it will not be called iija. it will be something else. if you have ideas about what acronym you would like, were open, have whole contest about it. but if you're going to implement what the president calls infrastructure decking, remember this is a lot that's only five years old to have to do it again to get to ten years. and so we need to be thinking about this continued investment keeping the job creation going. there's a reason for good reason many reasons why unemployment is below 4% for the longest stretch that we had in the last six you

get one reason is because women and men are working in construction all over the country. certainly aren't my state and my district. my dish aukus will be don't talk much infrastructure week or decade. everyday is infrastructure date in washington state, second congressional district. if you want to do work in my district, were ready. if you find workers and in no that's one of the questions we have ahead of us as well, so it is being uncommitted. it's about two and half years old which is like being a toddler that for iija it's middle-aged. we are getting through it. we need to start thinking about what is going to be, what he will look like next. some of these dollars, i think garrett is referring to are sitting in the budget of states. a lot of this monomer is a form of money, ghost estates and states are either programming it like my state, and an over all those dollars are larger going to go, from the federal formyl program because our state program pick some states have not. one thing you can do to help us

is to talk to your legislators, your members of congress but also your local legislators in your states and tell them to get those dollars out the door. for whatever reason is the being held and not being spent or program yet, get on it. we need to get these dollars to work for people. looking ahead as well, there's been announced in my state we were hitting unfortunately a high of road and highway deaths. and so highway safety needs to continue to be a primary care where seeing some of dollars being implement it locally in order to improve safe routes to schools, safe routes to anywhere. a lot of communities need to rebuild, rebuild some of that pedestrian infrastructure. so kids can get safety to school. i think a third issue to think ahead is the transition that we've seen in transit agencies.

a lot of them are investing in low and no emissions come some electric buses come some propane below are in mission and no emission transit all over the country. we are able to do it because of the single largest transit investment we saw as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law. it's a lot more work to do and i will look one more thing if i could and turned back over to marsia is the revenue to do these projects. the gas tax of the can have the age old conversation about the gas tax. i was on a committee in 2005 when we directed the transportation revenue commission to write a report and pay at the time came up with, not came up with but discussed how we need to get to vehicle miles traveled. that was 2007. my math isn't too good but that's like 19,000 years ago when they came up with that recommendation. now we still call that innovative. there's no such thing as innovative financing. in transportation. it either pasteboard or doesn't pay for it. there's no tricky way to do it

so we need to think about things. things. so our state commission just was able to get a grant in washington state with oregon, utah, idaho, nevada and hawaii to collaborate on a road user charge, kind of like a vehicle miles traveled on, how to implement. that's something when you do look at an addition to many other things including traditional funding but also what else we're going to do your options are out there picked a matter of whether or not real users options in order to fund the trust fund so we can do this work. >> thank you both. and really you both hit on this we've had this historic legislation and investment and infrastructure, but you both refer to implementation. so what are some of the successes and challenges that you are seeing with the state and local partners, with the federal government as part of the implication of this? >> i'll start and then turn it back. one is people.

so think about in a couple ways. when we did, we would pass the bil actually put in several, many, do programs at the transportation department had great these rules around his programs. that delayed some of these programs to get them implemented, and as well like anyone else there's a a lack f people in the federal workforce to implement those programs. seem to be over that hump and the dollars are now getting out the door. that's one reason why we need to keep this engine going so we don't want to lose about muscle memory to get these dollars out the door. second is workforce locally. i know it's a challenge to a lot of you -- that's my mom. it's a challenge -- [laughing] because actually having people to do the work is very important. some of the programs that some of the funding we approved are actually tied to work for 2000 as well. i was just in washington in my

state. they have project where they're putting, a credit for 78 charters for this library of comments projects as part of that great and part of the contract with the contractor they're tying it to apprenticeships. i was able to visit that project, see the ibew union, work with her incoming students to show them how to come base basically how to install charging stations in order, sort of think of it as if you want the next generation infrastructure, , we need to tye out to developing the next generation workforce to build the infrastructure. that's the couple ways, couple things you to think about the challenges of workforce. >> i've got five boys who need a job so i'm all for that. go ahead, rick. >> in regard workforce and how we can get the capacity in place to actually deliver on these projects, i think that you've

got two problems that are fairly distinctive one of them is i think that you do for lack of capacity in the pc space, professional engineers, civil engineers and others. we've seen this. this been a long time coming in that we don't have the workforce in the pipeline to students who are pursuing those engineering degrees. i think look, i come from a long line of civil engineers in my family, and i think one of the sort of disincentives that there is this long lead time to get your professional engineer, to get your staff. going through the engineering intern, the programs we have to take as long as i think it's five years now, for years, excuse me. for years now to go on beyond college to get that stamp. i think we really need to take a look at that and figure is her way for us to come to expedite that an obviously safety and professionalism is key but is it something we could be doing to up to incentivize and just not

make that such insulin so far away? the second issue is more in the skill labor side, the blue-collar side. i think one of the challenges we created for cells as we saw during covid where we were creating all these programs where literally federal government, social or for program for computing with workforce, meaning to want to stay here and stay on unemployment and other program scope or a i going to when the workforce? i think we introduced this whole new lifestyle to a number of people that are still going to get over the hangover right now. so there's no question as congressman larsen noted that we need to make investment into training programs come into friendship programs that help to get the workforce, give the folks in the workforce trained and ready to go to build the capacity. but i do think on that p/e side i think we need to take a fresh look at what the right training and curriculum is to get someone to have professional engineering stamp and are able to

participate in the types of projects from the capacity. >> thank you. and honestly, , we are seeing sh a downturn in enrollment, we are, that's all we really just release the imax movie cities of the future. we've got to get those fifth-graders and third graders if we want to become civil engineers. but i appreciate that feedback. >> if i can just, ten seconds. i think also adding, i know -- [laughing] >> but also looking at how to redesign what is civil engineer is for 2030 and beyond because it's not the same as was -- >> that's actually what the movie is. so resilience. we are understanding that it's becoming increasingly important as part of the design process as we experience a number of extreme events or even our bonding community, the projects

are not lasting the length of time the bonds are. which have severe economic social and humanitarian consequences. what can the federal government do to improve the resilience of projects that funds are roads, rails, bridges, et cetera, to meet his extreme weather events? >> 10% of the land areas represented by the coastal counties, parishes and brewers around the united states widow 40% of the population lives there. we are seeing increasing challenges with living in these coastal areas and the population is continuing to migrate to those places. in fact, both congressman larsen and i represent coastal districts. we've got to get good, we've got to get good at living in sustainably living in coastal areas. one of the problems with being able to implement it, is the arduous process to go through regulatory. we've got to have a more dynamic process.

i'm going to say something again that i said earlier. we've got to have project development delivery process that reflects the urgency of the projects were working on. number two is that you've got uncertainty with storm intensity, with storm frequency, with sea rise and all of these other factors. one of the things we've got to do is make sure we're developing project solutions adaptation resilient solutions that do best in sort of transcended through those brackets of uncertainty for these things that we can't totally predictable nail down with an appropriate margin of error. there wasted that but the most important thing you got to incentivize resilience for adaptation by having a regular structure. >> another thing on the funding site is a couple of funding sources to protect the grants and garret graves here is a champion of the program. these are discretionary grants the first round of grants i note

came out recently in my state, the seaport of light received $24.5 $24.5 million to do some work and as well as the council government. examples are local. receive nearly $300,000. just to do baseline of what you need to do because, we haven't found the people doing this plant in a while so they need to know what they need to do so they can then go pursue dollars to address the resiliency concerns. the second thing is we had a hearing last week, i think was last week, time travel stranger in congress. an usher when it was. hearing in the emergency management subcommittee on the brick program, hazardous mitigation grant program. the brick program or try to get out ahead of the next weather event rather than rebuild where we are, actually literally money available to rebuild differently through the building resilience

resilient infrastructure in our community grant, grants. so that's a critical tool as well but it also means folks, have to really communicating a lot to people if you can rebuild like we did an order to the next weather extreme weather event come to the exact same thing it would seem that again in my district in the border in what can count with a november 21 rains and floods and atmospheric rivers. to everyone who live there seems like one month-long event. in the mac it was three separate offense which drives as are crazy. we talk to fema about that because they have to do with these one big long weather event. administratively as three events. it's causing problems or trying to rebuild after that tried rebuild on those lessons so that if we get the same kind of weather, which were built the northwest, we will not have the same kind of results.

the dollars are there. thinking he had about what communities need to do ahead of these events and given what happens after these events to lower the likelihood same kind of damage occurs is going to be, you know, important mineshaft and never think about next extreme weather everything. >> thank you. we could have a whole other session on up-to-date codes and standards being adopted, but it did want to talk about the permitting process because it has been brought up. so deploying infrastructure investments quickly and safely mean rightsizing the permitting process required to get these underway permitting rules seem to be the issue not necessarily the legislation. we tried to use a sledgehammer instead of a flyswatter, when a flyswatter would be just as easy. what are some of the ideas you all have your considering what he comes to streamline or

improving permitting in future infrastructure legislation? >> i do want you to save some time. >> he wants the rebuttal. our right. so real quick. look, i do want to do a bit of a celebration. i can june last year despite this crazy dysfunctional divisive congress that we've seen, in june of last you would reach of vipers agreement on nepa which is the first time effectively that wall has been a minute and amended it 35 pages of text, huge changes to. did things like estimated earlier not a seven-year or eight year environmental impact statement limiting in law to two years and one of 50 pages. limiting to one euro and 75 pages, limiting the scope of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement to quote reasonably foreseeable

impact. not all of these other pipedream type things. what is realistically could happen and that would look at that and mitigate? looking at future without action and injuring you look at both the positive and negative consequence. expanding use of category exclusions, ensuring you codify in long one federal agency in charge, not a committee any longer. all sorts of things, some really good progress i will make note i have been cruelly disappointed some of the rules, some of the roles making the white house recently did on this and they did not abide by the agreement and to think that something so will make it more complex and longer. in terms of next level stuff i think one of the key issues is judicial review. right now we are seeing what you have attorneys waiting, statue limitations about to expire coming in at five years out, filing a lawsuit after record decision issued and further delaying this thing. on average 150 lawsuits a year are filed on nepa.

average they take excess of two years to resolve and the majority of them are resolved in favor of the record decision for the governments favor. we've got to stop this. in fact, i had a meeting with brian deese and john kerry if years ago. we walked in, i didn't say word and they said you've got to dress judicial review. coming out of their mouth. both of them up left now. maybe to get tired but i think that that is a key issue we've got to get judicial review in different we came close to negotiate with the white house in exchange for changes to community engagement and we couldn't quite get typically ran out of time but i think that is going be one of the most important things we can do moving forward as well as expanding the use of categorical exclusions when you didn't exact same type of project over and over and over again. we don't need to go through this whole ridiculous process. >> suck at it you had an answer. one is related to this and one has nothing to do with this since we have two minutes let some going to skip ahead as

well. so on permitting, we may changes in 2012 in map-21, 2015 and a fast act, 2021 and bil and, of course, 2020 the fiscal responsibility act and were still talk about permitting. if you are not working, not doing well or there's always the next thing people want to do in permitting. until there's no permitting, probably not, but it sure seems like were always doing the permitting reform and it's sort of like congress. it just goes on forever. and so you know certainly i'm open to look at permitting reform but at some point when is, when are we no longer doing permitting reform? i don't know the answer to that. just a heads up. not that i'm against it. we have challenges in my state and i can come up with specifics when that you can help you with my problem at home. i'll take care of it. but i do want in the last minute

want to make a note about the bill on the floor today, that's the at the a bill, the federal aviation administration authorization act of 2024, which we passed 351-169 out of the house back last july. we passed unanimously out of committee before that. the senate got around to it in february and only did a committee bill. we've been working with the senate on that for the last several months. the senate finally got around to passing the agreement and he came to, they passed out last week. so this afternoon we will be debating the bill on the faa and then tomorrow we will be voting on it. i expect a strong bipartisan vote on that bill to pass it and send it to the the presidena five-year reauthorization of the faa and a lot of other things going on in this deal. it's an example of bipartisanship that does exist on the committee.

we are doing our markup on water resources development i'll be at the end of this month, the end of next month. we have a coast guard bill on the floor today, a vote that is bipartisan. we passed, we pass in a committee at bipartisan pipeline safety bill in the pipes act in december-ish or something around those lines come along those lines. if you want to see bipartisanship in action, not bipartisanship in action, but bipartisanship in action, come to the t&i committee. that's what we do. we work. that's we never hear about the work we do. we are very boring, very exciting. we just kind of tragic through things against our work done. i will continue to the rest of the year and i presume continue the next session of congress. >> thank you very much. you know, i think what you both of illustrator today that this is a bipartisan issue. it's about public safety and it's about the economic growth of our country.

and we appreciate your time today and effort and what you are all doing in congress on our behalf. thank you for your time. >> thanks a lot. >> thanks everyone. [applause] >> please welcome the intelligent infrastructure panel. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> good afternoon, everyone. my name is david gill become head of policy strategic partnership for sidewalk infrastructure partners. it's my great pleasure this

afternoon to talk about a topic that is at the heart of a lot of the change of innovation that's happening around the world. as we all know we are his celebrity infrastructure would come for some people but, we are to a nephews into the infrastructure decade. also if you read the news it seemed like every week is i week. just yesterday open and i announced a whole set of new features for their gpt form model. instances where 1.5 years into a decade when chatgpt was original. i'm thrilled to have a group of leaders across sectors and cost different forms of government and the private sector to start to dig into both the opportunities and challenges ahead as we think about applying technology to infrastructure. so i'm joined by commissioner eileen higins from miami-dade county. thank you for being with us. joined by mayor steve patterson of athens ohio. and joined by jeremy schaefer, vice president of the bentley systems. so there's a lot of different,

different parts i think which we can enter this conversation but i want to start with mayor patterson, both because of your leadership and work in athens also the work you do national leaders, just how you're seeing the impacts of ai -- national league of cities that are bringing more intelligence into infrastructure with the work you're doing, whether whether that's the grant you recently received from the joint office of energy and transportation for charging infrastructure of some of the great collaboration you do with the university of ohio and others. i'll turned over to. >> thank you and thanks for having me here. there's so much going on right now with municipalities when he comes to ai and implementation of ai in different ways. national league of cities basically represents 19,000 communities across the nation and every one of those communities whether your city, a village or town, , you can some level of ai, in some cases it of you know that ai at the

fingertips, yet they do. with the city of athens as you mentioned we were fortunate to receive substantial charging and fueling infrastructure grants which is about $12.5 million and is really a collaboration where we had municipalities across southern ohio partnered together on this application. it's 18 communities from the city of athens in the southeast corner of the state to dayton, ohio, over on the western side of the state at a number of small committees in between. it's not just the community. >> its schools, universities, it is trailheads into recreational spaces. and with all that if you think about it that's going to be over 250 charge points with these 50 plus charging stations. we're going to have to ai communicating and learning the users within those 250 plus charging stations, whether it's

a tourism-based, who's coming, who's going. i think equally important for those of you who have an ev,, charging anxiety is a real thing. can't figure out where's the next closest charging station if this one is not working, and so using ai to your advantage and having that system learn what is going on, his or her weak somewhere in the system. another thing to share, in terms of the city of athens that i find very interesting that we are capitalizing on ai is that we were fortunate to get, it's a congestion the medication air-quality grant through federal highway bar association agency and also through our ohio department of transportation. and with the project the thing that's facet is one of our major corridors into the city of athens, it has the largest

traffic volume and it's got roughly ten signalized intersections through this retail corridor. it's got 1920 -- some cases 1920s. it's got 20-year-old infrastructure that is saying they're using the magnetic loops and identifying, you know, winter the traffic light change, when it shouldn't change your we're going to replace it but also with basically the system that will be the brains of this, it will be learning traffic flow through that corridor where a college temper ohio university is our largest employer so we're a very seasonal kennedy. we have this ebbs and flows of that traffic pattern. the system also be able to monitor that and learn from what is happening during the summer months versus september 10 may when our volume significantly increases and smooth out that

traffic flow. when you think about it if you're spoofing at that traffic flow you are reducing carbon emissions with cars sitting there idling needlessly at a a traffic light at 2 a.m. in the morning when things actually should be moving and getting people from point a to point b without having to idle. >> thanks. commission higgins, , in your leadership of miami-dade county, you are helping lead one of the country's largest counties but also one of the most diverse, tickling social economic terms. you also have leadership role with national association of counties in the transportation community. how are you saying the role of ai, particularly run service delivery in the way you are supporting of the county can support residents? what other ways you think that sorting to make an impact? >> i can use interesting. i have been in ai your one and half, i don't know how many

times we had to figure out what is ai. and so i think about it in two ways. one thing is to speed up basic things that have to happen everyday. and the other for counties and cities and did the love of government is how do we adapt, how do we use the adaptive learning capabilities of ai to enhance our services? there's a number of ways where i can think of examples. we just necessary for counties, where unveiling in july our first ever roadmap for ai for local governments on all of the guidelines, the guard rail, to go along with that. i was proud to work we just finished our first ai policy for county. i think it's a first in florida. some of these things that we look at, so example data entry. that can all be automated.

311 calls, a lot of that come up with what other right responsive for that. you really talk about how to deliver better services. we hear talk to infrastructure. and for us i'm tickled active in transportation and public transportation. so the service to writers as are trying to get people to win from work on our transportation system. ai can enhance that. first of all we can look at how are we if service or invitatl essay were in a bus, however using ai to predict what can happen at intersections so we can adjust our schedules? and of thinking it's that for miami-dade county but they just did a great project on the golden gate bridge out in california to make sure that bus service became more of a liability. that was all dealt with with ai. for us for example, i mean yes, you can count ridership by tabs

but in the pandemic were not have people tap because that cut folks too close to bus drivers we wanted to still know what are ridership was. we were able to activate and ai model using our cctv that was able to sort through while protecting personal images and to say this is your ridership. then it was able to predict when we had too many writers for social distancing and we need to add more surface at a particular route so we're keeping our bus drivers safe. ai is an amazing tool. i do think we need to be careful with it. but there are ways we can make sure we really providing better service to the people that we serve in local, and local government. and hopefully speed them up through some great permanent reforms. i'm sure we'll talk about that.

can't get away from that in infrastructure expert all these examples within talk about all have, a lot of differences in terms of applications but in all of these there's a real need for partnerships with the private sector and where the innovation comes from. i'd like to bring in the private sector into this conversation. so jeremy, i'd like to turn to you next. i know we may be a year and half into ai and the kind of public consciousness but there's a lot of things that have been going on for years and decades before that. one of the terms that has been used quite a bit is the digital twin. that something i seen it all. given your work at bentley, , i would love to your perspective on the evolution how you're seeing me to spell the end of the public sector entities start to draw concrete benefits from this technology. >> sure. thank you. we've and work with ai for many,

many years so it's exciting to see if i hasn't burst onto the public scene in terms of common vernacular. we've always viewed bentley as very important out a digital twin of your infrastructure whether that's a water system, a roadway network, port, transmission lines. a lot of the discussions earlier, we talk with infrastructure owners and designers and practitioners about the problems they face as a working to plan, design, build, operate and maintain that infrastructure. and so, for example, during the electrical session earlier today they were talking about one of the things that kept the deputy secretary consecutive up at night was wildfire risk. we work with our users to provide digital twin of their infrastructure lines and a look at wildfire risk to drone imagery to see whether this

encroachment of education on the water systems i can for example, even worked with users while developing virtual digital twin of the water system. people don't appreciate a lease and the public anywhere from 25 and 30% of the one is put into the system is lost, as un-billable water. when you are able to the utilize digital twin with artificial intelligence to super some of those losses are occurring to fix him and helping and criticism and drive down costs. of course even specific instances in transportation network here if you wrote the d.c. metro system, every night that track blockers are quite a look at that track your very mar emanuel intensive process and 77 incidences where people have perished during that where there's been track collisions that have occurred. but we can do that all with having real geometry cards taken announcement of data and then analyzing circum- looking with problems in getting the right

maintenance at the right time there. >> there's example after example where ai apply in room reliable in top of the digital twin to help save time, money and make it safer for the workers out in the field and for the traveling public. >> that point around safety and automation brings up a topic that you mentioned drones as another potential application. when people hear something like autonomous drone or any type of autonomous vehicle, there still a bit of concern around safety but also around agassi and did and so forth. if anyone of panel would like to start on this topic, how are you think about finding the right balance? what are the concedes that contribute to where do you think they're still more innovation needed or i'll be all set to go at skin with these type of technologies? >> i'll speak first to that.

we've been wait with minnesota department of transportation and several other dot's in infrastructure owners. it is very hard appear you can envision some very large complex bridges. and having to make a those in the people literally the old way of doing it clyne and inspect every part of that of t. so drones have been a game changer in allowing us to be able to fly the drones in a safe manner, create imagery, do crack detection and focus race was on the critical part of the structure. one concern though is when you're creating that digital twin, when you getting all the information on this critical infrastructure, he also have to secure it so that we live in a world sometimes where there are bad actors that want access to that information so we need to secure the information so that people might want to do something bad to that bridge don't get access to it. we also need, it does come in. there are various state laws

that take an effect like if we capture imagery of people or license plates having to worry about blurring though so we're not unintentionally revealing something that shouldn't be revealed. >> i can think of another example. many of us i think in the transportation sector were putting in dedicated bus lanes everywhere. sometimes they are completely protected and the car can't get in there and other times whatever, mr. delivery trucks or whatever, , somebody just stops there and that slows down our bus service. so ai, we can have police officers everywhere. they need to be, we know they need to help us enforce but we really like to have them out looking for criminals. you probably shouldn't be arrested. but ai is now enabling our buses around the country to look at who is there. but, of course, as it's capturing the image of the carpet in the lane, there's

other passenger vehicles going by you might accidentally capture their driver's license or picture. so the ai technology is now as your sing blurring all about other kind of extraneous personal information, just getting down to the one vehicle that really should get the citation. but the ai company is a issuing the citation. that particular image is going over to law enforcement, and law enforcement says yes, this is a violation, and issues a violation. it's an interesting combination where we still, we sometimes need checks and balances on all of that and that has to be built in into the system, particularly as computer enhances and advances and capabilities. >> i'll add a little bit to this especially in the drone world. there is in athens, ohio, and within athens county there's

three different water suppliers, the city of athens with her own water supply with our water treatment plant but there some other partners that are out there providing water. we are looking at a county that has 63,000 people who live there. the city of athens is 24,849, and of those there's probably 3000, 4000 accounts, water accounts within the city of athens, give or take, and we have just using, we have our meter readers going to rent each month reading that meter. meanwhile come out in account does the individual who is currently using telemetry on his plane flying back and forth for another supplier and is able to capture a significant portion of the county in the meters outside the city within an hour and half

to two hours and capture that i have it sent back. we are exploring that with the drones in athens. we haven't started there yet but were looking to see if we can get the right and have the drone in an hour go through and do what is going to take somebody you know, a week or longer to sit there and collect the data and then upload and whatnot. instead of using a drone. you mentioned rail, which was such a great point, at the core of everything we we're talkit with ai is what, it's the electric grid. and they can do with all the data centers, with all the technologies out there, our grid is strong enough to support all this. then your layer on top of that green energy. you've got sold a field or you've got all your community cannot access ira because you now are a smart goal committee, whatever that is.

that's putting the load on the grid as well, right? and using with our energy supplier in athens and southeast ohio is convincing them to start using drone technology to go and inspect those high tension lines that are coming in. because all too often we are expensing brownouts in in some cases blackouts and is because the ways those lines are inspected out to where you're literally walking it. we have a significant tree canopy and southeast ohio were not uncommon during a high weather or high wind event where it will knock something out or sidearm all of a sudden fails and you got a line that drops. by not having that joint technology going out with infrared and inspecting hotspots as well as is being able t

politics. >> and ipab we is an associate or bachelors. so the demand is incredible and the average age of those students are 27. so the already working in 40 40 present the students are women. so it is really recruiting folks to come and learn new skills as well as young student. i told you we in the county, i worked with her id, our cio to make sure we had ai policy, but the second half of what i worked with on was to make sure we analyze all of the jobs in our county and what our county employees needed to learn. as a miami dade college is now

creating that curriculum for our county employees would get to go virtually and in person should they choose be able to get the skills they need to do their job. for somebody fancies can be like machine learning and natural language processing, blah, blah, blah. but for many of our county employees it's going to be this ai awareness and ai practitioner level. phenomenal collaboration between our community college and also fiu at the more advanced research level. as might affect the receipt some grant money from u.s. dot on cybersecurity and transportation because ai is creating new pathways to hack our system. we've got to be working as we implement and i, we've got to up our game on our cybersecurity site as well. >> on every stage of infrastructure process, ai can

be of assistance to engineers or maintenance workers to help make them more productive. and help make their job even more targeted, safe if what they're doing. the design phase, ai can look -- will not design the bridge for them but they can look, i can learn from what that particular engineer has designed in the past and they can present them options they might want to consider for that particular topography, the particular traffic load and the budget they have for that solution. so they can can get them started a stand on a blank sheet of paper to have something to begin to work with based on what that user, what that company or that dot perspective is. and then all the way onto into operation and maintenance. we have one solution that looks at basically takes dash cams that are on every delivery truck or public work vehicle. it's collecting imagery on the road. right now there is a manual process often of finding where

maintenance problems are, where safety problems are on the road, looking at the line, reached i become if a scientist visited the all things that can be very, very time-consuming and it's hard to staff were dot. by crowdsourcing all these dash cam images, you're able to take that, look at the visual 20 requirements and able to almost instantly say hey, we've got debris in the roadway. we've got a line that has been, that's not meeting standards here, i signed that is been knocked down. these are all things the i can assist with to help target what most agencies were working with have shortage of workers, target those workers to wear the need to be and to keep them safe so the not out in the roadway looking for that. >> on the training front, i appreciate your candor about mayors -- >> and commissioners.

>> is a different of mine mayor tom johnson of somerset ohio, small village, they have created a covert share workspace and occur specializing in ai training and applying tech cred to that as well and their focus is the fact that we're going to have the largest intel chip manufacturing plant in the world in central ohio. the kind of harnessing that, knowing looking for in times like we need to be prepared for what the needs of going to be for intel moving forward. i'll share a real quick story with you about mayor johnson. this is pretty cool. he, too, is learning, he's drinking from a fire hose when it comes to ai. he's created for himself and avatar that looks exactly like him and has five fingers on each hand, and he's working on it to becoming a messaging platform for he is the mayor, to wit risk

of the message was going on in the village of somerset and so on and so forth but using ai to constantly kind of monitor local press and to constantly update his avatar. the one thing i think about that for mayor johnson is kind of the flipside of a lot of what we talked about today, and it's what you can potentially based on what of your software platform is and as partnering with the federal government to make sure that we have some safeguards in keeping this great technology on the site as good as both a sum of one something nefarious, i i could think wih mayor johnson i said be careful as you make him him one day and your avatar has just going off when you're in saying something she don't want the public to hear about you. one of the things nlc has been really diligent on is to put together an ai advisory committee. the mayor of savannah, georgia,

mayor johnson has been working on this with nikki lee, councilmember nikki lee of the tucson, arizona, and bringing together 20 individual leaders from across the u.s. to sit there and make sure that we can think through how can the national league be on the front end of helping the federal government set some guidelines to where we are ensuring ai is been used for the good that ai is at the end of the day. we're also using our partner google to comport with an ai toolbox at some point in the future. that would be great for local leaders to sit there and note you've got a one-stop shop for all the things she should be noted, then jeff access to, think you should be thinking about developing in the future when it comes to harnessing this great technology. >> it's clear and i thought having activist impact and a lot of power. it's a good reality to check

those. you can trust everything and accounts are unfortunate at point i think as we think about the application to critical infrastructure it's a whole other level of security that we need. the cyber site but just in terms of trustworthiness of information. on the topic of improving processes, we couldn't go hope type of permitting. leaving aside perhaps what wish list we might have for comprehensive reform, like what at the local level like are you seeing as opportunities for your respective organizations or jurisdictions of improving the way the project get to the process by harnessing ai or other types of technological tools. >> you want me to start? apparently. all right. now the complete all the time about the federal government and the nepa process and article processes and visits and that

process but the really is to get everything the project build we need local project. we go to the nepa process but that doesn't mean you have your building permits for whatever the structure is been used to have to go through. and our can with basically miami-dade county for very important environmental permits and all of this and that some of our basic public works projects to believe involve the federal project which led to get road permit, all that come intersection can sometimes it's the county road in the city and work together. we'll need to be faster about permitting, right? we are all part of the process and we all need to be better. in our county about five years ago when i first got elected i was realizing for example, affordable housing was taking almost two years to get permits out for a large building. we embarked upon a pretty technology intensive not so much ai intensive but technology

intensive process to streamline that. and a proud to say in december we permitted a 12 story building with the pedestal parking garage in 170s. so high rise. pretty dramatic agreement. for local governments can get better. i'm going to give an example of how we pivoted during covid. we were one of those counties we wanted to keep construction going. there were outdoor jobs. we felt as if there was safe enough because they were indoor and want to keep some parts of our economy open while others will close down and balance the safety issues. what we also get to be able to provide inspection. it took only about three weeks to give it. but we went to be able to do cell phone to cell phone like our inspectors rather than being at the site risking their health for able to do a lot of the basic inspections like is this valve installed properly via cell phone. all the stuff should be able to in the future be done with ai, right? so we can keep our inspectors

doing the hard stuff, the stuff that has to be in person. but all of these basic things we just need to clear them out of the backlog and in florida there are a couple of cities that are trying to ai technology particularly this is sort of less, the simpler permits come the ones that are less risky, right, still learning here, but the less risky basic building permit and break them back. i do think there's a real opportunity via asic technology can improve in streamlining, and again ai is supposed to help us do that basic faster and then it has this ability, this predictive ability to have us learn from what we've seen and get better and faster. and i think in permitting we need to be able to begin using it to do the basic stuff faster. >> want to emphasize the streamlining portion of it.

it's the lack of streamlining thickets and most men is found as ways breaches have layers and layers of bureaucracy and letting ai using ai to teach you, your chokepoints burkini to sit there and rethink how you doing this to free things up and allow if you're receiving federal monies, statements, whatever the project is that's going on in your community that there's, they should be an easier and a more streamlined way of getting this done. >> out just say from an industry perspective, there is a level of maturity among governments that spans the spectrum. what a mean by that is we work with firms, they will develop very detailed 3-d model of a piece of infrastructure, but the city, county, dot, what if the older entity is, their policies

are self-paced on 40 years ago. all they want our plans, 2-d plan sheets and stacks of 2-d plan sheet. 90% information generated generated in the 3-d model is effectively lost. the owner operator if is giva stack of two d plan sheets that then enters a very cumbersome manual paper driven approval process. other entities are much on a different side of maturity process and a fully adopted digital delivery seek and basically digitally submit documents the entire width way h the infrastructure planning cycle. that will dramatically speed up the entire process to save money and time. ultimately the people who read the benefit on the municipalities. the municipalities, engineering is a very risk-averse field so it's hard sometimes to get people to make changes but there's many possible examples of municipal municipat have made those changes and we would encourage other wants to do russell. >> great idea. the first step in all this is

getting out of processes rely on paper and things that can't be automated by the need, so there's a step change. part of what appeared across from the three of you is without ai is an accident to read. we know how fast that's something. to be part of that growth requires the bigger you get some basic ratchet up have, instead of a stack of 2-d sheets of paper, have a database that intimate put, they can be improved and harnessed by some of these technologies. as we get ready to wrap the panel, i think it might be helpful to each of you your perspective on partnerships. we have described things that some of different parts come with its the federal government, state and local or private sector and local. what do you look for in partnership? what makes something successful, whether it's ai process or technology and innovation more broadly? how do you think about striking

the partnership that's needed to implement any of these deities we have been talking about? >> you know, i'll jump in first. again, i mention athens is a small city but we often are hitting with above our weight when it comes to advancements in community. if you're speaking the partners, i mention if i grant, the cfi grant has 18 municipalities that came together to apply all in one package as opposed to everyone sitting there trying to apply separately and quite honestly dot does sing something like that. but that's an example of partnerships. i've been pretty diligent as a of athens in developing partnerships not just within our county but across a lot of ohio. so for me to make connections ago hey, who wants to jump in on this?

we will find, athens will become the lead or maybe if we get too big we will have to have someone else be the lead on this. but at the end of the day we are going to make this work. and then also working really closely with our state and federal partners. all the times come to cut out those connections. you've got to be open. as often, i speak as an elected official. you've got to push partisanship out of the way. that has to place when you're talking about advancing your own community and partnering communities to be able to harness ai and all ai can offer. ..

two interesting technologies in trying to encourage innovation. one is predicted and we are about state. what is going on in those intersections people cell phones

so way, with things that make this. >> when i look at the industry, a lot of love solve problems to solve those problems and it is great with is a clear. collaboratively the technology. i'm very excited we are going to be able to do. [applause]

logo. ♪♪ >> good afternoon. i am vice president transportation u.s. chamber of commerce and i'm excited to introduce our next speaker and this is the last discussion will have today. thank you for showing up. across the federal government

and the transportation. the public service management and budget. university of virginia an emergency policy. the longest come up to the stage. to coordinate for anyone who has

been around before that, you know infrastructure and this is part of the investment american strategies and about rebuilding infrastructure and in doing that cost myself will bridges and airports in the clean energy

resilience and so much more. and equity jobs so imagine the complexity organize ourselves for this result. we need this money to get out the door and this is something the federal government has gone to in 19% of the funds are being delivered to bats by state and local aims and contract with

important. and the drop projects but also the backyard one and the community benefit those are the priorities. >> the department transportation about time this the operational

standpoint it is different from those. >> it is different from incised also peak traditional reauthorization, you're talking transit here we are talking about so much more. we sent transit contract in 50 years and investments inc. data. i would say on the transportation side and increases and different modes reauthorization and the opportunities and challenges that come with and working with

agencies and the capabilities to deliver self in many ways reauthorization and through some lessons and one of the things we took from that react to thousand nine and a recovery coordinator and i was in the white house. every state to appoint thought. they spend this resource across the country democratic states

and resources and the players. >> so there is a lot you have to manage. obviously if you begin the work, not an idea of where you want to go south you talk about where you want to go highlight. >> back to start with macro, two and half years into a five year bill we have for 50 billion of the door in the projects.

we seen some really great specific staff. 165,000 miles road projects related over 9000 projects. and replace up to 1.7 million and meaningful work underway also, broadband and those are top lines but sometimes they prevent you the individual projects we have seen the major projects rate line a couple weeks ago which is super exciting and i was highlight moving forward about the areas.

>> on the big stuff but implementation is about a million things every day.

and they are like this in our state and local partners so couple of examples we listen and learn adjustments. what is the we are pushing spunk transit we heard. we hosted training at the white house the association will be hot agencies and major manufacturers in other players that resulted in how payments can be made a similar issue

probably is formational time at this scale we heard globally from below of the requirement a barrier to entry and other types like performance and but this is what we do every single day problem solving.

times that you this. right now considering this component. what you are all saying this requirement, the understanding of the way in which it implicate for a similar waiver. >> i know many are familiar with

this but take a step back. i american laws on the books since 1930 on the buy american side for clients are a key part of pa and infrastructure projects. any kind of infrastructures covered by american and a number of goals. this is something biden strongly supports knows domestic manufacturing if vertically important to restore american competitiveness particularly on unmet these factors. announcements today so all this to say but this is a critically important part of this. the predictability is one of the

most important things so have been quite consistent over the last three years. practice and a very high bar and examples where we work on limited waivers and factors. in the domestic industry.

there were multiple rounds of comments and engagements what we landed on was a two-step waiver and it was required as of february and they are grantees through the programs telling us is a manufacturing issue and that is one. on broadband the individuals who go in the program unless the

waiver and it was focused on sectors and we have seen domestic manufacturing want to provide.and the focus is possible and it is showing where the waiver for the investment were week along and we see this avenue. >> can you speak more to those roles? >> sure.

the rules give out negotiations is ability. require more on these limits. it is the tool for moving products quickly and provide way and providing this analysis which is or value in this administration. it is the right thing to do and it is a community product without delay medicated candlelight. >> it provides data in the

previous of administration is difficult logical and physical think we are doing to track these resources. the administration is in the agencies including the dollars we secured and the ira. i'm sad but i want to thank your

for resources agencies like epa were embedded in the administration making sure the agencies have an understanding the process and the budget request. the projects to move in a matter of weeks instead of months or years. one of first things we did was allow sharing of charging and semiconductor doctrine.

>> the francis scott news out of baltimore, a 40-foot channel so all good developments for tragic incident you talk about the authorities. >> verse want to acknowledge the tragedy from a six construction workers lost their lives tragedy struck and we acknowledge that the other is first responders we

have the army court navy present amazing organization. everyone has shut up in the community that is all of the operations on the ground. we are deferring those decisions on the ground and they are empowered to get that done. and we are working together and

advocating for his. and that bipartisan report we see for this project rebuild itself hwd and for these options they have many and they are all dedicated.

the funding and one official into me and the paving of roads and we are working as quickly as we can in the balance of the law and responsible for that. we have the american rescue plan

which is a short-term financing rebuilding these and reshaping our economy enemies it will be a combination of shovel ready projects. some projects have not only been on that but are finished in the expanded in front of the brief project in michigan and we have projects to finish and move on. and the lines are still going. this audience knows and votes in the industry know the expenditure is not the best indicator the last thing i'll

say important is a five year bill for braided funding over the course of five years and the 90% of the funds available right now are either our hands and in partners or on the so the money as quickly as possible that's right we talk about the objects and asked real people and encourage get those to accept

this law, we encourage to help on this one is participates part of this exercise, i know many are but we want more companies and entities to be part of this project. the other in your communities but also give us stories. we love telling stories about individual products and would love to hear about announcements. cabinet members and others all over the country participate

regularly. and a lot of on the basis here and we are willing and ready to engage because you all know with putting on the ground so be back in the civil engineers and manufacturers.

the partnership network and the partners at bradley art sponsor family for everything you saw here today. thank you for attending,. [applause]