Biden's point man on infrastructure law

Sep 21, 2022 View in browser   By Jordan Wolman VERBATIM Photo Courtesy of White House Mitch Landrieu has his hands full. As senior adviser to President Joe Biden in charge of coordinating implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law, Landrieu is fielding funding proposals and applications for projects. He and his team are in close communication with governors and local leaders, encouraging them to think big: This is America after all, he says, and America should be No. 1. While the law is closing in on its first birthday, Landrieu is left navigating the thorny details of how to strike a balance between states' visions and a national strategy for projects in areas such as clean transportation, electric vehicle charging and lead pipe replacements. It's a new adventure for Landrieu after having served as mayor of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and in the midst of the BP oil spill. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Do you expect the funding in the bill will have any benefits for Democrats in the election, especially since a lot of the money won't be out the door by November? In my role in the White House, I am not a political person and not necessarily going to speak politically about whether or not it will help in an election or not. Obviously, when I was rebuilding the city of New Orleans, when you're rebuilding and you got things coming out of the ground and you got credit for it, people would say, 'Oh, well I like that, and I want more of it. I'm going to vote for that guy rather than the other guy.' So of course, progress will be helpful. I have for the time since I've been here cautioned people about thinking about this in the short term because it takes a long time to build a bridge. If you want to do it, it does take you a minute to get this money down to the ground, make sure people are planning well and build for the future. And so this is a five- to seven-year plan. How do you deal with criticism that there's both not enough money, like for PFAS, and too much money being spent? I have not heard of one noted economist that has said that the way that we're spending this money is inflationary at all because they know that it's going out of the door in a very deliberative and thoughtful way. So I think that issue has been settled. There was a political argument about that at one time because people were looking to gain a political advantage. We should hurry, but we should make sure we're doing it right because we're laying the foundation for future investments. Was there enough money for PFAS? Was there enough money for lead pipes? Was there enough money for roads and bridges? Every person that's looked at infrastructure knows that we have about a $6 trillion infrastructure deficit. This bill is only $1.2 trillion. Now $1.2 trillion is more than we've done in the last 50 years, so I always tell people you be grateful for what you have. Make sure you do that well. Let's take this out of the political realm. There's no Democratic or Republican way to fill a pothole. And if we do our work well, and we are doing our work very well, I'm hopeful that whoever the next president is and next Congress will understand this and then fill the gaps. In the IRA, there are concerns we can't meet the ambitious domestic sourcing requirements for EVs and critical minerals. There's talk of counting Canada as domestic. Did we go too far there? I get very interested in seeing, "Gee, you reached too far,' or 'You tried to do this too fast," and, "Can we really do it?" In other words, you're being cursed for being ambitious. People said, "Oh, well, you can't do manufacturing again," and we said, "Yes, we can." Other administrations said, "We want to do manufacturing but I'm not showing up, I'm not putting up any money, I'm not putting in any structure." Clearly we know that when you try to do something like this and you stress the system, you're going to find holes. Critical minerals is one of them. Let's talk about lithium. We've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out, whether it's in the Salton Sea or other lands, how to get to it, how fast we can get to it. So now there's a chicken-and-egg problem going on. Can we really stand on our two feet 100 percent of the time right now? And the answer is probably not 100 percent. But we've got a great running start. And in a reasonably short period of time, as these market signals go out, the private sector starts to come in, and we start to mine lithium and we start to process it. We will be able to produce for the most part what we need in the United States of America. And when we can't, if we can't, of course we'll talk to our allies. You shouldn't not start because you don't have the whole thing done. How are you working to address concerns from western states that the requirements for EV charging stations to be within a certain proximity from each other are unrealistic? We feel pretty good that we've done the best that we can given the parameters that we have. We fully expect, whether it's grants for building roads or EV charging stations or the grid, that we're going to get feedback from the governors about what works and what doesn't work. And those respective offices are going to have to work with that and through that on those particular issues. What plans does the administration have for ensuring that the charging assets the taxpayers are investing in aren't then becoming abandoned or underutilized after the money is spent from the bill? Whether it's the EV charging stations or high speed internet or the grid, we don't just give this money out without paying attention to it. We're asking each of the governors to give us a fairly detailed plan about what they expect to do with it, where they expect to put them, how they expect to maintain them, and how they expect to pay for this in the future. When they do that, then we will give them the funding that has been promised in the bill.   JOIN THURSDAY FOR A GLOBAL INSIDER INTERVIEW : From climate change to public health emergencies and a gloomy global economic outlook, the world continues to deal with overlapping crises. How do we best confront all of these issues? Join POLITICO Live on Thursday, Sept. 22 at 10:30 a.m. EDT for a virtual conversation with Global Insider author Ryan Heath, featuring World Bank President David Malpass, to explore what it will take to restore global stability and avoid a prolonged recession. REGISTER HERE.     YOU TELL US GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. We deliver data-driven storytelling, compelling interviews with industry and political leaders, and news Tuesday through Friday to keep you in the loop on sustainability. Team Sustainability is editor Greg Mott, deputy editor Debra Kahn and reporter Jordan Wolman. Reach us all at gmott@politico.com, dkahn@politico.com and jwolman@politico.com. Want more? Don't we all. Sign up for the Long Game. Four days a week and still free!   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.     WHAT WE'RE CLICKING — Wall Street banks are expressing wariness of Mark Carney's green alliance. — A fire at a Tesla energy storage facility shut down part of California's iconic Highway 1. — A prominent anti-ESG activist is coming after Disney and Apple.   Follow us on Twitter Debra Kahn @debra_kahn Greg Mott @gwmott Jordan Wolman @jordanwolman   Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.