Examiner: T. Boone Pickens: US infrastructure severely underfunded

From Examiner:

With more than one third of U.S roads and interstates congested and poorly maintained Americans spend an extra 38 hours per year in rush hour traffic not only adding to greenhouse gas emissions, but also putting pressure on the world’s scarce oil resources. “America’s dependence on foreign oil is streaming revenue away from domestic projects and into other countries, many of which are our enemies”, said Texasoil tycoon T. Boone Pickens at a news conference in Houston, Friday. “Oil rich nations are reaping the benefits of this great transfer of wealth to build state-of-the-art roads while the U.S struggles on congested roads and collapsing highways and bridges”.  The U.S sent nearly $17 billion overseas in January, importing about 408.7 million barrels. Money, Mr. Pickens said, that instead could have been invested in infrastructure and roads. In Texas, where the population has increased 57 percent since the early 1980s, state road capacity has only grown by 8 percent at the same time as many big-city projects aimed at relieving traffic has been under funded.