President Joe Biden recently proposed an over $2 trillion bill to address crumbling infrastructure across the country.
Iowa’s Fourth Congressional District Representative Randy Feenstra believes an infrastructure bill should fix aging roads and bridges, which he doesn’t think this bill does.
“Unfortunately and sadly the bill that’s been rolled out, the $2.1 trillion proposal, from the administration, only six-percent of the dollars are going for these types of assets. That’s where I have a problem. It’s like, if you want to call an infrastructure bill an infrastructure bill, then let’s have those dollars go to infrastructure, not more charging stations, electric cars and stuff like that.”
According to U.S. News and World Report, Iowa ranks 19th in the country for infrastructure and Greene County Engineer Wade Weiss says despite the purchasing power for new roads and bridges that are allocated to the Secondary Roads Department have not seen a dramatic increase in his almost 30 years, but he believes that by maintaining roads and bridges, it has kept the county from seeing crumbling infrastructure.
“The maintenance we’re talking about on the structures, we’ll have smaller structures that will have someone come in and replace some new steel piling to replace wood piling. We’ll extend the bridge life 30-40 years (and) do it at a minimal cost. So related to other counties, we’re in excellent shape. But we also have 149 bridges, some counties have 500-plus bridges. So think what’s happened is it’s been more of an issue with money versus us not keeping up with it.”
Biden’s infrastructure proposal is part of his American Rescue Plan.