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The Biden administration likes to use the Badger State to highlight how the bipartisan law is upgrading bridges, water lines, internet speeds, and electric vehicle charging stations.
White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu visited Madison last Thursday to demonstrate the positive impacts of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, capping off a three-week nationwide infrastructure tour featuring President Joe Biden, Cabinet members, and other officials.
Landrieu’s stop was along John Nolen Drive, one of the main arteries into downtown Madison. The route’s six bridges will be replaced as part of a $15 million project funded by the law that will create jobs and upgrade a route used by 45,000 vehicles per day.
“This is going to create lots of jobs,” Landrieu said in a video he posted on social media from the site. “It’s going to improve the economy. It’s going to improve safety.”
Landrieu’s visit wasn’t the first time the Biden Administration has used our state as a national backdrop to highlight the successes of the infrastructure law. The president himself visited Superior with Gov. Tony Evers just over a year ago, in the shadow of the aging Blatnik Memorial Bridge, while Landrieu came to Milwaukee last July to highlight lead water pipe replacement.
A former New Orleans mayor, Landrieu made sure to offer credit all around for the work that has led to infrastructure projects getting started in Wisconsin. He specifically thanked Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, US Rep. Mark Pocan, Gov. Tony Evers—and singled out Sen. Tammy Baldwin for ensuring infrastructure law had “Made in America” provisions for materials.
Despite the name of the law, no Republicans from Wisconsin voted to support the legislation and the jobs, projects, and economic benefits it will bring to their communities.
Based on a state-by-state breakdown from the White House, Wisconsin is projected to receive approximately $5.4 billion over five years in federal funding for highways and bridges, at least $100 million to expand high-speed internet coverage to more Wisconsinites, $176 million to provide clean and safe drinking water, $80 million to replace the existing I-39/90/94 Wisconsin River Bridge in Columbia County, and additional funding for ports, waterways, airports, electric vehicle charging stations, and clean buses.
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