The U.S. infrastructure was in bad shape coming into this decade. Rated "D" for overall performance by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2009, the entire system proved in dire need of some much overdue investment to catch up with global competitors.

"There is a real sense of urgency right now within the United States," says John McDonald, director of Technical Strategy and Policy Development for the Digital Energy division of General Electric. "We have an infrastructure that wasn't maintained very well for a long period of time. It's getting older, so the chances of catastrophic failure are now greater than they have been."

Catching the system up after such neglect to prevent this kind of failure will require an investment of $2.2tr over the next five years, says ASCE President Andrew Herrmann. And that is just to make a "B" on the next infrastructure report card.

Failure to make this investment, he says, will cost the United States hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions from the GDP.

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Keywords: supply chain, investing in U.S. manufacturing infrastructure