Taking stock of an issue he has made a key domestic priority, President Joe Biden on Wednesday touted his administration’s progress in updating roads, bridges, railroads and more at a convening of his national infrastructure advisory council at the White House on Wednesday.
The council includes senior executives from across sectors who advise the president on securing the nation’s infrastructure.
“When folks see these big projects in their hometowns, when they see the cranes up in the air and the shovels in the ground … it brings them hope,” Biden told members of the council. “It brings them hope and pride. It brings pride back to communities that were left behind for much too long.”
The president said the council would discuss efforts to invest in and build reliable and resilient infrastructure, particularly in the face of a changing climate, which Biden often calls an “existential threat.”
“Because it’s not just about building infrastructure, it’s about building better infrastructure, stronger infrastructure -- infrastructure that can withstand 21st century challenges from climate change to cyberattacks to natural disasters to foreign threats and so much more,” Biden said.
The president, for instance, has placed an emphasis on designating funds to strengthen the nation’s electric grid resilience as extreme weather events such as the deadly Maui and California wildfires continue to strain the nation’s aging transmission systems.
In the aftermath of the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in more than a century on Maui in August, Biden announced $95 million to harden the island’s power grid.
The money came from the president’s signature bipartisan infrastructure law.
Last month marked two years since the president signed the more than $1 trillion bill that seeks to update aging infrastructure and invest in public works projects.
“Two years ago, I signed into law a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and to fix our roads, railroads, bridges, ports, airports; remove every single lead pipe in the country; and extend high-speed Internet, advance clean energy, and modernize the electric grid -- energy grid,” Biden said on Wednesday. “Already, we’ve announced over 40,000 projects in 4,500 communities all across our country.”
“Some of them are still coming off that page of the planning phase, others are actually physically in construction right now,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Spectrum News in an interview ahead of the bill’s anniversary.
The Associated Press contributed to this report