Engineering Inc - March/April 2018 - 12

Congressman Bruce Westerman: Engineering is a great back-

ground to have to serve in Congress because engineers are taught
how to solve problems, be very analytical and take some of the
emotion out of the decision and concentrate on the facts. That's
where my engineering training has been invaluable for me while
serving in Congress.

ACEC: Do you think having more engineers in
Congress can make a difference on legislation such as
transportation and energy?
Westerman: It should be a plus. One thing I've noticed about
Congress is that if you have expertise on an issue that comes up,
you generally get an opportunity to weigh in on that issue because
your colleagues respect your expertise. We've had some issues in the
past, and the fact my colleagues knew I had an engineering background added a little more weight to my perspective.
I believe we need more engineers in elected office across the
board. I talk to a lot of engineering groups and to engineering
students, and I always encourage them to get involved in politics,
whether they are going to run for office or not. The fact is the laws
and rules propagated by those in elected office can have a lot of
impact on engineering careers and what happens with the economy.
It's just important that engineers become more involved. I don't
know the exact number of engineers currently in Congress, but I do
know there are two engineers who were just elected by special elections-Ron Estes, R-Kansas, and Greg Gianforte, R-Montana.

ACEC: What is the stretch from being trained as an
engineer to going into public policy?
Westerman: For me it was simply taking the opportunity to get
involved. The first office I ever ran for was the local school board.
My engineering background worked well for me there because they
were looking at a construction project and had to deal with a lot
of things that come naturally to engineers-managing projects,
understanding how projects flow-things that were second nature
to me but a void to the rest of the board as well as the administration. I had no ambitions of serving in Congress when I ran for
the school board, but from there I went to the state legislature and
then to Congress.

ACEC: Do you have suggestions for engineers who are
interested in getting more involved in politics, policy and
legislation?
Westerman: Whether it's a volunteer position such as serving
on a school board, city council, county government or one of the
volunteer organizations, there are always places engineers can get
involved. I believe that anywhere an engineer chooses to become
involved, they will find that their background and expertise are
needed. Our church was hit by a tornado and since I'm a deacon
of the church, and an engineer, they made me chairman of the
rebuilding project.
As engineers we have things we can share that will benefit
other people although that's not something we always realize. But
it takes being active and getting involved, something engineers
should do more.
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ENGINEERING INC.

MARCH / APRIL 2018

One thing my office has
done on getting more engineers
interested in public policy has been
to start an engineering internship
program. We're doing that with
the Association of Engineering
Deans. John English, dean of the
University of Arkansas College of
Engineering, created a program to
provide scholarships for students to
come to Capitol Hill in the summer to intern in my office as well
as with the House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee.
North Carolina State has a similar
program. It would be great to see
those kinds of programs expanded.
ACEC: What is your prognosis
for whether we're going to
get an infrastructure bill, and
what do you think some of the
dimensions of that bill might
be?
Westerman: I have yet to meet

GARY LANDSMAN

ACEC: How has your training and experience as a
professional engineer affected your role as a legislator?

"I have yet to
meet anybody
in Congress, or
anybody in the
administration,
who doesn't
want to see an
infrastructure
bill."

anybody in Congress, or anybody
in the administration, who doesn't
want to see an infrastructure bill.
People recognize the need for
infrastructure. It's not something
that's politically motivated. You can
see the deterioration of the roads,
inland waterways and airports.
There's a huge demand for rural
broadband, which particularly
affects my district.
We know the infrastructure
needs are there, the problem is how
do you fund it. I know it's one of
the top priorities of the administration. We've already talked about
it in the House Republican Conference. The big priority starting
off 2018 is what we do with the infrastructure package. As a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I
hope to bring some new ideas on how we fund infrastructure.
There's talk about public-private partnerships, and that works
great in urban areas with a lot of use demand. But in rural areas,
such as my district, you probably won't get too many public-private
partnerships. We have an infrastructure funding formula that's not
relevant anymore, and when it was first put in place, there were
things you could not foresee in the future, such as increased miles
per gallon on vehicles and electric vehicles. We have a lot of vehicles on the road that are paying zero to use that infrastructure.
While we generally think of infrastructure as roads, we must also
consider our inland waterways, which are important in transporting so much of the nation's freight. An example is the McClellan-
Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System in my district, which is
in major need of repair. A tremendous amount of freight depends

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