“We’ve had an eight-year war on infrastructure by the Obama administration,” said Mr. Norquist. “They tried to stop and did stop pipelines, coal production, gold exploration, mining of natural gas and fracking.”

Beyond the energy projects, which the president jump-started by reviving the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines, he said Mr. Trump is poised to get more bang for taxpayer bucks on transportation projects by rolling back regulations that drive up costs on federal jobs.

“His intent to rebuild our infrastructure is real and he’s serious about it, but we should think of it as part of his deregulatory efforts,” said Mr. Norquist.

Doug Sachtleben of the anti-tax group Club For Growth spoke encouragingly about what Mr. Trump has signaled about the plan, such as the use of public-private partnerships.

“We also would encourage President Trump to scale back as much of the unnecessary federal costs in these projects as possible,” Mr. Sachtleben said.