The Biden-Harris administration’s push to remove purportedly racist inner-city highways may end up being a failure, according to Politico.
Congress appropriated about $4.5 billion in total for the Biden-Harris administration to fund highway removal projects in America’s cities, Politico reported, in part because some of those inner-city roadways are supposedly manifestations of systemic racism. To date, the administration has only fully obligated about 4% of the $3.5 billion in grants announced by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to further the inner-city highway removal push. If former President Donald Trump were to win a second term, his administration could work to claw back funding that has not made it out the door.
The White House has mentioned the purported nexus between racism and public infrastructure in press releases promoting its infrastructure projects, including the urban highway removal effort. Moreover, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said “There is racism physically built into some of our highways” in 2021 before a visit to Syracuse, New York, which is home to one such roadway that has been selected for receipt of federal funds, according to Politico.
To varying extents, many Biden-Harris administration infrastructure programs are facing similar time crunch issues with the prospect of a second Trump administration looming, according to Politico. With respect to the highway removal project funding, a potential Trump administration could change the criteria for awarding the cash and remove “equity” as a guiding principle, for example.
“DOT is providing enhanced technical assistance, expediting processes, and working quickly with project sponsors to execute grant agreements,” a DOT spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The majority of funds announced last year are under a signed grant agreement, and many of the most significant grants announced in March will have signed agreements by this coming January.”
Notably, Vice President Kamala Harris has supported the administration’s urban highway removal initiative in the past, according to Politico. Harris paid an April visit to Georgia to talk up a $185 million grant to build a paved cap over a highway in downtown Atlanta, which would reconnect the city’s business district with a historic African-American neighborhood and free up 14 acres for new development.
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