Tag Archives: infrastructure

NBC News reports: A Mexico City subway train overpass collapsed onto a road on Monday night, killing at least 23 people, including children, authorities said. Dozens more were injured. Photos and video from the scene showed mangled train cars hanging from the crumbled overpass and rescue personnel searching and transporting people away from the scene on stretchers. “A support beam …

The Daily Beast reports: ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz immediately corrected Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) on Sunday when he tossed out a falsehood on the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal. In recent weeks, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that only six percent of the $2 trillion spending plan is devoted to “traditional” infrastructure, something that fact-checkers have found to be untrue. The …

Via press release from Amazon: Amazon founder and CEO shares a statement in support of investment in American infrastructure. “We support the Biden Administration’s focus on making bold investments in American infrastructure. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported infrastructure in the past, and it’s the right time to work together to make this happen. “We recognize this investment will require …

The Week reports: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), a moderate Democrat who more or less serves as the 50-50 upper chamber’s swing vote these days, gave President Biden’s infrastructure proposal — as it’s currently written — a thumbs down on Monday. In a radio interview with West Virginia’s MetroNews, Manchin said raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent, as envisioned …

Tampa’s ABC News affiliate reports: Florida state and local leaders fear an “imminent” collapse of the retention pond at the former Piney Point phosphate processing plant in Manatee County. People who live and work in the area are told to get out and stay away. In addition to a “significant leak” at the bottom of the 700-to-800-million-gallon holding pool, several …

Axios reports: The Open Society Foundations are pledging $20 million to jumpstart as much as $100 million for a campaign to rally progressives around President Biden’s infrastructure and social welfare proposals. Why it matters: Backing from the George Soros-founded group could serve as an important call to action for Democratic donors and activists who support Biden’s initial $2 trillion+ infrastructure …

Politico reports: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan would pay for itself while upgrading infrastructure from decades past. “Right now, we’re still coasting off of infrastructure choices that were made in the 1950s,” Buttigieg said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Now’s our chance to make infrastructure choices for the future that are going …

The Daily Beast reports: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a rising Republican star and potential 2024 presidential candidate, appeared flummoxed on Wednesday night over the fact that much of the spending in the Biden administration’s proposed infrastructure bill goes to, well, infrastructure. “I was on a call with the White House today with all of the governors talking about the …

The Washington Post reports: The White House on Wednesday unveiled an approximately $2 trillion jobs plan focused on infrastructure and the climate, a blueprint that represents President Biden’s vision for how to reshape the U.S. economy. Under what the administration calls the American Jobs Plan, Biden aims to tackle some of the nation’s most pressing problems — from climate change …

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), whose vote proved key in the Senate’s party-line passage of Biden’s coronavirus relief bill, said in an interview broadcast Sunday night that he will not cooperate with Biden’s next major legislative push — an infrastructure and climate bill — if Republicans are not given more of a voice. Manchin’s comments, on …

The New York Times reports: Federal agencies would no longer have to take climate change into account when they assess the environmental impacts of highways, pipelines and other major infrastructure projects, according to a Trump administration plan that would weaken one of the benchmark environmental laws of the modern era. The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act …

The New York Post reports: Mayor de Blasio is trying to jump-start his stalled streetcar with a new route and study. The city announced Thursday a route and environmental review for the Brooklyn-Queens Connector streetcar, a trolley known as the BQX that would run along the boroughs’ waterfront. The new BQX plan has been chopped down to an 11-mile route, …

Reuters reports: A motorway bridge collapsed on Tuesday over the northern Italian port city of Genoa, killing dozens of people according to the local ambulance service, in what the transport minister said was likely to be “an immense tragedy”. A section of the bridge crashed down from a height of about 50 meters over a river and some railroad tracks …

CNN reports: President Donald Trump is pivoting to infrastructure — again — on Thursday as he travels to Ohio to tout the economic benefits of his proposals to help rebuild and repair America’s ailing system. Trump will address a crowd of heavy-equipment operators, mechanics and engineers at a union training site in Richfield, Ohio, to put a spotlight on workers …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump signaled support for a 25-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase to help pay for infrastructure at a meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday, a source in the room told POLITICO. Trump’s support, though not confirmed by the White House, represents a stark departure from recent administrations and congressional leaders that have tip-toed around the issue because raising the …

Crain’s New York reports: President Donald Trump dropped his own New Year’s ball—in the form of a wrecking ball—with a late Friday afternoon announcement that effectively wipes out plans for perhaps the nation’s most crucial infrastructure project. The president officially scrapped his predecessor’s proposal to have the federal government underwrite half the cost of a multi-billion-dollar Amtrak tunnel connecting New …

The Week reports: President Trump tweeted that a devastating train crash in Washington state on Monday illustrates why his infrastructure plan “must be approved quickly.” A timeline for Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure overhaul — one of his major campaign promises — has been unclear, although it remains a possible next step in early 2018 after the GOP votes on a …

Amazingly, no one was killed.  Washington state Department of Transportation spokesman Travis Phelps told KOMO-TV that investigators are looking into the possibility that an oversize load struck the bridge and triggered the collapse. The collapse will raise questions about the nation’s infrastructure, which has been a popular issue with President Barack Obama, who earlier this year warned against “raggedy” roads …