Howard Maier, FAICP – Adjunct Assistant Professor of Political Science

Which doesn’t mean they agree all that much. But in 2021 Congress did pass the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” officially the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, PL 117-58). The IIJA made available a trillion dollars, of which $550 billion was “new money” rather than just extensions of previous spending. It was far, far less ambitious than President Biden’s wanted, spending less than a fifth as much and on a much narrower definition of “infrastructure” than he proposed. But that was the price of avoiding defeat by a Senate filibuster: as passed, while it only received 13 Republican votes in the House, it garnered 19 in the Senate, out of the 49 Republican senators.

There is rather more agreement at the subnational level. All governments, Republican or Democratic, need to build and maintain roads and many other kinds of infrastructure. In fact a large share of infrastructure spending in the United States is intergovernmental, with contributions from some mix of the federal, state, and local governments. This is made more complex by the fact that roads in one town or city or county connect to roads in the next unit over, so it makes sense to coordinate projects across borders, while other kinds of projects, such as main sewer lines, are shared among many jurisdictions (Shaker Heights stuff is treated at the Easterly plant on Lakeshore Boulevard east of Bratenahl). Thus Cleveland Water is using $19 million from the IIJA to replace lead pipes, while also seeking funds from the Ohio EPA to do more; and the Environmental Protection Agency authorized $100 million of IIJA funds to begin removal of the Gorge Dam on the Cuyahoga River, a project that also involved the Ohio EPA, City of Akron, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, and First Energy.

Transportation projects are similarly complex; as Howard Maier says, “It Really Is Complicated.” Howard knows because for many years he directed the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, or NOACA, the federally-mandated Metropolitan Planning Organization to coordinate transportation and environmental projects across local government lines in our five county areas. The federal government created MPOs precisely because of the need for intergovernmental coordination, and you probably have seen NOACA signs on all sorts of projects. This week’s discussion about infrastructure therefore will focus on how government infrastructure financing really works, focusing on our own region. What gets built and why, with whose money?

Friday’s is the last Public Affairs Discussion of the Spring Semester. With reasonable luck we should resume as Fall Semester begins on August 30. Thank you, thank you to all those who made this past year work. That includes Dr. Andrew Lucker for managing this newsletter; Erick Bruckner-Iriarte and Meg Coyle, our student assistants in the Fall and then Spring; Angela Sloan and the staff and management of the Kelvin Smith Library for giving us a place to gather; Deborah Marshall for informing our first year undergraduates about the discussions for the Explore Program; Sydelle Zinn for lots of delicious baking; our wonderful set of speakers; and most of all those who have attended and listened and questioned. Please spread the word to anyone you know who might enjoy joining us in the Fall.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Howard Maier has worked many years in transportation planning, city and regional planning as well as public administration. He retired in 2012 as Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), a position he held for more than two decades. NOACA provides transportation and environmental planning for Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, and Medina Counties. Prior to NOACA, Mr. Maier held other public and private sector positions, including Director of Planning and Development for the City of Cleveland Heights. During his career, Mr. Maier received a number of professional awards and honors. Among others, he is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He also received a Distinguished Alumnus award from the College of Engineering at Ohio State University and was inducted into the Mayfield High School Alumni Hall of Fame. Prior to retirement, he served as President of the Ohio Association of Regional Councils and Treasurer of the Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium. Among his current civic activities, Mr. Maier chairs the Senior Transportation Connection of Cuyahoga County. He serves as vice-chair of the Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District. He also co-chairs the Cleveland Heights Transportation Advisory Committee. He has a B.A. (Economics) and a Master of City and Regional Planning both from Ohio State University as well as an M.S. in Public Management from Case Western Reserve University. A lifelong cartoonist, he drew editorial cartoons for the Sun Newspapers in the mid-1970’s and co-wrote the script of the animated cartoon entitled It’s the Greatest Little City. He is married to Sue Maier, a CWRU alumna. They have three adult children and two grandchildren.

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