White House identifies the 7 worst states for infrastructure
Dive Brief: In its push to advance President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, […]
Dive Brief:
- In its push to advance President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan, the White House released fact sheets on Monday that highlight infrastructure needs in each state.
- The sheets show the number of bridges and miles of road in each state in poor condition, the percentage of households without access to broadband and the billions of dollars required for water infrastructure, among other needs.
- The White House graded states on the state of their infrastructure, giving out mostly Cs or C-minuses. Georgia and Utah received the best grades, with C-pluses.
Dive Insight:
The seven states that received the lowest grades were:
| State | Grade | Roads in poor condition |
Bridges in poor condition |
Increase in commute time since 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delaware | D | 250 miles | 19 | 5% |
| Hawaii | D+ | 664 miles | 84 | 9.7% |
| Louisiana | D+ | 3,411 miles | 1,634 | 9.3% |
| Michigan | D+ | 7,300 miles | 1,219 | 4.6% |
| Mississippi | D+ | 5,840 miles | 1,386 | 5.6% |
| New Jersey | D+ | 3,995 miles | 502 | 8.8% |
| West Virginia | D | 3,200 miles | 1,545 | 6.4% |
The administration pulled the grades from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ infrastructure report card, according to U.S. News and World Report. The ASCE gave the country as a whole a C-minus grade — an improvement over its previous score of D-minus but still considered mediocre. More than a dozen states received no grade.
Released last month, Biden’s massive infrastructure plan touches on everything from airports to highways, clean drinking water to revamped electric grids, school construction to public transit and clean energy to bolstered broadband deployment. It carves out $621 billion for transportation infrastructure; $689 billion for buildings and utilities; and $500 billion for worker training, research and development and domestic manufacturing initiatives.
The White House proposed to pay for the plan over 15 years primarily by hiking the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. Biden is now working to garner support on Capitol Hill for the package.
The fact sheets reflect how the White House is attempting to appeal to leaders at the state and local level, according to The Hill.
Biden met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers earlier this week, discussing among other issues how to pay for the bill. The meeting was an effort by the White House to show that it was willing to at least consider proposals to scale back or reshape the package, according to The New York Times, and to hear alternatives to Biden’s plan to pay for it by raising taxes on corporations.
“I’m prepared to negotiate as to the extent of the infrastructure project, as well as how we pay for it,” Biden told the lawmakers.
