Vice President Kamala Harris closed out the White House’s “Investing in America” tour on Thursday with an announcement of one more set of investments: nearly $300 million in grant funding for repairing and updating nine bridge projects across the country.

What You Need To Know

  • Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday announced roughly $300 million in grant funding for repairing and updating nine bridge proejcts across the country

  • Harris's announcement closed the White House's "Investing in America" tour, which celebrated infrastructure and manfuacturing projects across the country that have benefitted from federal funding

  • The bridge projects announced Thursday include those in major metropolitan areas, like Madison, Wisc., and San Diego, Calif., as well as rural projects in Oklahoma and South Carolina

Harris did so just a stone’s throw away from the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge, on Interstate 395 in Washington, D.C., which spans the Potomac River and connects the District with Arlington, Va.

“Every day, more than 100,000 people cross the northbound 395 bridge to go to work, to go to the store, to visit loved ones and to tour our nation’s capitol,” Harris said. But delayed repairs, she said, have led to closed traffic lanes, a permanently closed shoulder, detours and delays.

“You’ve heard in this town people talk for a whole long time about how they’re gonna fix things. People talked about fixing our bridges. Well, now I’m proud to say that we are doing it.”

The nine projects include repairs and refurbishments in major metro areas, like Madison, Wisc., San Antonio, Texas and San Diego, Calif., as well as multi-bridge projects in rural sections of Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Harris's tour-closing announcement coincided with events in upstate New York, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt's visit to South Carolina and White House infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu trip to Madison, Wisconsin.

This program, Harris said, is part of the $40 billion bridge-repair program included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, intended to help repair about 15,000 bridges across the country.

Last January, the Department of Transportation launched its Bridge Formula Program, which will fund bridge repairs across the country over a five-year period. Thus far, it has released $11 billion in funding. Within the last year, the Federal Highway Administration has announced $2.12 billion in grants for bridge projects, including major improvements planned for Kentucky, Ohio, Connecticut, Chicago and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

“All of this represents a very simple and basic point: When we invest in infrastructure, we invest in America,” Harris said.

Bridge Investment Program grant projects

  • Palm Avenue Overcrossing Bridge, San Diego, Calif.
  • Lafayette Avenue Bascule Bridge, Bay City, Mich.
  • Castleton-on-Hudson Bridge, Albany, N.Y.
  • Rural bridges project, Oklahoma
  • Burgard Bridge, Portland, Ore.
  • Rural bridges project in South Carolina
  • The US-59 San Antonio River Bridge, San Antonio, Texas 
  • Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge, Washington, D.C.
  • The John Nolen Drive Bridges in Madison, Wisconsin

The three-week “Investing in America” tour took White House officials across the country, celebrating government programs funding road and bridge repairs, fiber optic cable installation, and lead pipe removal and replacement in water systems.

Officials also toured the sites of existing and forthcoming factories and plants, including President Joe Biden’s visit to the Wolfspeed Semiconductor plant in Durham, N.C. — which is expected to add 1,800 new jobs to the area — and Harris’s trip to the Qcells solar panel factory in Georgia — which has a planned $2.5 billion expansion, expected to produce 2,500 new jobs.

These investments, the administration said, were the result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.