Bernard L. Schwartz – Economic Policy Development

Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Washington, DC

CSIS is a foreign policy think-tank that seeks to advance global security and prosperity by providing strategic insights and practical policy solutions to decision makers. CSIS is led by John J. Hamre, formerly deputy secretary of defense, who has been president and CEO since April 2000. It is guided by a board of trustees chaired by former senator Sam Nunn and consisting of prominent individuals from both the public and private sectors.

Commission on Public Infrastructure

Bernard Schwartz supports CSIS’s Commission on Public Infrastructure, which seeks to raise awareness about the state of the nation’s infrastructure, including airways, ports and mass transit systems.

The nation’s infrastructure policy is at a crossroads, caught between rising demands and outdated programs to address them. The nation’s drinking-water and wastewater infrastructure is in need of extensive repair. One-quarter of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete. According to a survey of the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE), our airways, port, and mass transit systems are unable to keep pace with growing demand.

The cost of these failures is great. Time is lost to delay, commerce is impeded, and business productivity is compromised. Some 13,000 fatalities on highways each year result from inadequate maintenance, design, or capacity of roadways. At the center of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was the failure of the flood walls and levee system. Our homeland security requires safe and efficient infrastructure systems and state-of-the-art facility management, planning, and technology for both first responders and the general public alike.

The CSIS Commission on Public Infrastructure, established in 2004 under the leadership of former U.S. Ambassador to France Felix G. Rohatyn, seeks to raise public awareness and dialogue on the subject of America’s mounting infrastructure problems, and to help lead the country towards making more innovative investments in public infrastructure.