The largest investment in roads, bridges and highways made by the federal government since the creation of the U.S. interstate highway system is going to require a larger federal workforce to help make it happen, according to a top official at the Department of Transportation.
At a media briefing outlining the first steps to rolling out the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that Congress approved late Friday, Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg said her department is bolstering staff to help stand up new programs included in the bill.
“We will go from being … around a $90 billion-a-year agency to one that will be closer to $140 billion,” Trottenberg said. “Not all of that money will be needed to run the department, but obviously we’re an agency that’s going to grow. We will need new members of the team, and we’re in the process of moving forward in some of those new hiring needs.”
A big concern with a major pot of federal investment dollars — the infrastructure bill contains $550 billion in new spending — is protecting the money from mismanagement and fraud.
“We know that we’re going to be held to a very high standard by the president as well as the public,” said DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg at a White House press conference on Monday. “We have an executive council with the deputy secretary and undersecretary, as well as myself, paying close attention to how we can make sure we have all of the right controls, the right rigor to make sure these dollars are spent well.”
Part of the $110 billion dedicated for surface projects will be used to fix up to 10 of the nation’s “economically significant” bridges, Trottenberg said, as well as 15,000 smaller ones “to avoid devastating closures” that have occurred this year, including the Interstate 40 bridge in Tennessee and the West Seattle Bridge in Washington.
The infrastructure bill also quadruples funding for the widely popular infrastructure competitive grant programs RAISE and INFRA, each of which has been funded at roughly $1 billion annually over the past five years.
One new program in the package that fell short of the funding that President Joe Biden had sought was Reconnecting Communities, which originally called for $20 billion to reconnect neighborhoods separated by the interstate highway system.
The program, which was reduced to a $1 billion pilot, is opposed by some freight advocates because it aims to dismantle portions of the interstate highway system without replacing lost transportation capacity.
Questioned about the downsizing, DOT Deputy Undersecretary Carlos Monje said it would still make a difference for urban neighborhoods fractured by interstate highways, because it is the first time any money has been dedicated for such projects. In addition, “there is a lot of other money, like road and transit money, that can also help reconnect communities,” he said.
As far as the public seeing the results on the street, Trottenberg said the infrastructure package will be “coming to life” over the next six months as both traditional funding from DOT begins flowing to states to repair and modernize roads, bridges and transit systems, and applications are opened up to access new competitive grant funds.
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TYPICAL DEMOCRATS HIRING AND EXPANDING THE GOVERNMENT AT A FEVERISH PACE IN THEIR BLOODLUST FOR POWER AND CONTROL !!!! ALL AT THE TAXPAYER EXPENSE WHICH WE WILL EXPERIENCE SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER TAXES STEALING MORE OF OUR HARD EARNED EARNED MONEY ⚠️🤡⚠️🤡⚠️ CLOWN ALERT⚠️🤡⚠️🤡 DEMOCRAT CLOWNS🤡⚠️🤡⚠️
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Richard M Rehmer
Yep, that’s the Biden Administration way, hire more goons to harass the drivers, (more fines, DOT needs the money), try to get the freight hauled, and then ticket the trucks when the HOS time puts them on the side of the road because there is nowhere to park the truck. I am still trying to figure out who is running the country we know it isn’t Biden. They want the freight but they plan to make it hard to deliver because shipper is not going to pay fuel surcharges as they did in the ’90s and now they want to test mile of travel tax on trucks or they say instead of fuel tax, we all know they will do both. 2022 will solve one problem Biden Administration’s ability to pass anything, but will it be too late when 2024 comes to undo all the damage?
Freight expediting LLC
It is a bloodlust for power and control by the Democrats The only thing different these days is how feverish they are pushing for it !!⚠️🤡⚠️ And as usual the measures that they take are the exact opposite of what would be most effective….. These are the morons that have a regulation style similar to sending you in a lake for a swim and telling you that you’re not allowed to use your arms!!⚠️🤡⚠️ LET’S GO BRANDON !!! 🔥🔥