WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ohio had a strong and bipartisan presence at Monday’s White House ceremony where President Joe Biden signed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill into law.
What You Need To Know
- Ohio lawmakers and local officials attended Monday’s White House bill signing
- Sen. Rob Portman, a retiring Republican who helped write the bill, spoke at the event
- Ohio is set to receive billions of dollars for highways, water infrastructure, bridges and more
- Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley and Sen. Sherrod Brown celebrated it as a momentous day
All five Ohio Democrats in Congress and Republican Sen. Rob Portman attended the bill signing.
Portman, who was the lead Republican negotiator and is retiring next year, spoke at the event and called for more bipartisanship legislation like it.
“We can start by recognizing that finding common ground to advance the interests of the American people should be rewarded, not attacked,” Portman said to applause from the roughly 800 guests gathered.
Now that the legislation is law, billions of dollars is set to flow to Ohio over the next five years: $9.2 billion for highways; $1.4 billion for water infrastructure; $1.2 billion for public transportation; $1 billion for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative; $483 million for bridges; $253 million for airports; $140 million for electric vehicle chargers; and $100 million for broadband.
In addition, Ohio’s state government will be able to apply for additional dollars from national funding pools dedicated strictly to ports, bridges and weatherization — Cincinnati’s Brent Spence Bridge could get needed additional funding from it.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a candidate for Ohio governor and current president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, flew to D.C. to attend the event.
“For us as mayors, it’s not partisan at all,” Whaley (D) told Spectrum News in an interview. “We had nearly 400 mayors from all 50 states, Democrats and Republicans, sign on to say get this done.”
Monday’s ceremony was a big moment for Ohio Democrats, who have campaigned hard for the bill to pass.
“It took a new president and a new Senate to pull people together to do this legislation,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who helped write the bill as chair of the Senate Banking/Housing Committee, told Spectrum news.
Biden gave Portman a shout out at the event and called him a “helluva good guy.” Biden even joked that he could say it because Portman is not running for reelection.
Meanwhile, all but one of the Republicans running to succeed Portman called the legislation horrible and are against it.
