The Infrastructure Candidate Forum is about more than roads and bridges, trains and airports, pipes and water treatment plants.  It’s about jobs. It’s about growing the American economy. It’s about getting to the doctor’s office and dropping your kids off at school without worrying about potholes, congestion, or train delays.  It’s about never having to think twice about whether the water coming out of your tap is safe to drink. It’s about being able to afford your house and your commute. It’s about knowing that our communities and emergency workers are able to withstand and respond to natural disasters from flooding to fires to hurricanes.

There is no substitute for leadership and vision from the federal government, from sharing the burden of funding maintenance, repair, and construction to helping communities adopt new technologies, making transportation and water safer, and ensuring that America’s economy has the infrastructure it needs to keep humming. While states, cities and towns, counties, and the private sector have been making significant progress on their own, the next president and congress must step up and lead on this critical bipartisan issue.

Convened by the groups that build, maintain, operate, and administer America’s essential infrastructure systems, the forum is a unique opportunity for presidential candidates to address an issue that 90 percent of swing state voters see as a top priority for elected officials and to directly address the million voters represented by our host committee organizations:

• North America’s Building Trades Unions
• The International Union of Operating Engineers
• Transport Workers Union of America
• Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO
• American Council of Engineering Companies
• Airports Council International-North America
• American Public Transportation Association
• American Road and Transportation Builders Association
• American Society of Civil Engineers
• Association of Equipment Manufacturers
• Build Together
• The Value of Water Campaign