Input Stories

To kick off Infrastructure Week 2026 events, on Monday the NAM, in partnership with United for Infrastructure, hosted a reception at its headquarters that brought together more than 200 key federal policymakers, industry leaders and state transportation officials.

• The event featured remarks by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Jonathan Morrison, NAM Executive Vice President Erin Streeter and United for Infrastructure Director Ross van Dongen. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA) also joined and spoke with guests.
• CRH, Caterpillar, Nucor, Brunswick, National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Beer Institute sponsored the event. 

Talking permitting reform and project delivery: At Infrastructure Week’s Tuesday event, the NAM led a stakeholder roundtable discussion facilitated by NAM Vice President of Domestic Policy Chris Phalen alongside Meridiam CEO Americas Nicolas Rubio.

Why infrastructure matters: Phalen first laid out why infrastructure policy is one of manufacturers’ top priorities:

• “Investing in the nation’s transportation infrastructure and alleviating congestion and bottlenecks … is critical to the success and the competitiveness of our industry. [In addition,] we represent the manufacturers of the cement, the asphalt, the steel rebar, everything that goes into making hard transportation actually happen.”
• “We were really pleased to see the [surface transportation] bill that came out Sunday,” he added, “with its focus on bridges, roadways and clearing up freight corridors. Some research that we put out earlier this year as part of our ‘Building to Win’ campaign found that highway congestion costs manufacturers $25 billion a year and equates to 65 million hours of lost time for finished freight deliveries.”

The permitting angle: Phalen also discussed the growing bipartisan consensus that permitting reform must happen—another high priority for the industry to ensure efficient project delivery.

• “[The surface transportation bill is] also a harbinger for the broader permitting reform debate. … This year is the year to act. We’re seeing the kind of coalition—the bipartisan interest come together. This bill is another step in the right direction on that.”

Why Congress must act: In answering an audience member’s question about actions that could shorten the permitting process, Phalen made a strong case for the necessity for congressional action.

• “There is already a requirement from the Fiscal Responsibility Act that there be time limits and page limits on environmental impact statements. And those are generally not followed because there’s still the fear of litigation—[so you try] to litigation-proof your document in a way that you won’t get in trouble as the person writing the document so that the project can actually be done.”
• “So ultimately, [we] do need the congressional side of it [to streamline the process], [though] there is a lot of good work being done to [allow] folks to follow the law as it is currently written. The Trump administration is doing a good job of implementing that.”