President Joe Biden traveled to Portland, Oregon on Thursday to tout investments at the area airport made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress.
“We’re here today to talk about investments we’re making to modernize this airport,” Biden said from the Portland International Airport.
Oregon received $43 million from the Airport Infrastructure Grants included in the infrastructure law, $20 million of which was allocated to the state’s largest airport. Another $3.75 million from the omnibus package will be used to create “stronger, more resilient infrastructure, such as an earthquake-resilient runway,” the White House said in a statement.
The Portland airport sits in the middle of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which experts have predicted has between a 37-42% chance of producing a megathrust earthquake in the next 50 years. The last massive earthquake on the fault line occurred in the 1700s, and officials say a quake of similar magnitude would be “felt throughout the Pacific Northwest.”
“A project has been modeled on the engineering of an airport that I happened to visit in Japan that remained operational in the face of a devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011,” Biden said Thursday. “Successfully evacuating families and moving lifeless saving supplies because their runway was resilient, it was built resilient in the first place.”
“Portland International Airport is a perfect example of both the need and the opportunity and the ability to make progress. I don’t have to tell you that it’s an essential economic engine for the entire region, not just Portland,” he added.
The airport employs upwards of 10,000 people in Oregon, and Biden said a massive earthquake would not “just threaten lives, it would threaten to shut down the local economy.”
In the years leading up to the pandemic, the Portland airport saw on average between 1.6 – 2.1 million passengers per year. While those numbers declined to just above 792,000 in 2020, average passenger load was back to baseline at 1.7 million last year.
“Having safe and sustainable airports benefits Oregonians who want to stay connected to out-of-state loved ones, and businesses that rely on the airways to expand economic opportunity,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, said in a December statement announcing the funds. “We passed this bipartisan infrastructure plan to address critical infrastructure concerns in the state, and I’m pleased this funding will upgrade our regional airport facilities to provide more safer and reliable travel for all Oregonians.”
The president also used his speech to reaffirm his calls for Congress to pass legislation to lower prescription drug prices and highlighted executive actions such as extending the freeze on student loan payments and tweaking the Affordable Care Act.
“I’ve called on Congress to move immediately to lower the cost of families’ utility bills, prescription drug costs, while lowering the deficit and reducing inflationary pressures,” he said.
Biden is set to attend a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Portland before departing for Seattle, where he will participate in a separate DNC fundraising event. On Friday, the president plans to talk about limiting price increases and will observe Earth Day in Washington state.
The trip is part of an expanded travel schedule ahead of the November elections as Biden tries to demonstrate that he has made progress on his agenda while also prodding Congress to do more.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
