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Obama faces £1 trillion infrastructure bill

US President elect Barack Obama faces a massive bill for neglected infrastructure, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) this week.

Obama has already pledged to invest £10bn in the coming decade to maintain critical infrastructure.

These plans were likely to have made Obama the preferred choice to lead the US by civil engineers as a consequence.

"Whoever wins the White House will have a number of pressing infrastructure issues to deal with,” said ASCE president David Mongan.

"In 2005 we prepared an institution report and gave the overall grade for US infrastructure as D. We estimated that there was a cost to state and local government of some $1.6 trillion [£1 trillion] to bring infrastructure up to an acceptable level. We will be issuing a new report in March 2009, but I do not see any significant improvement," he said.

A special meeting of Congress will meet on 17 November to discuss a package to boost the US economy. It is thought to be similar to plans being developed by Chancellor Alistair Darling, focusing heavily on infrastructure spending.

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