OHIO — Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to travel to Columbus, Ohio Friday to discuss the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package and how it’ll affect Ohio, the White House announced Monday.
It’s not yet known where exactly Harris will be and at what time. Columbus will be the first stop for the vice president following the signing of the package.
President Joe Biden is expected to sign the infrastructure package into law Monday afternoon, which is formally known as Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
In Ohio, funds will be going toward bridge repairs, broadband expansion, clean drinking water and much more.
The state is expected to receive $9.2 billion for federal-aid highway apportioned programs and $483 million for bridge replacement and repairs over the next five years.
Biden’s package would set aside $1.2 million for Ohio’s transportation needs to replace vehicles as well as make them more accessible to improve options across the state, $140 million over the next five years to support the expansion of EV charging stations and $100 million for broadband expansion.
Ohio had been a major talking point for the administration’s package earlier this year. Biden visited Cincinnati in July where he called attention to the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati to northern Kentucky. The bridge is part of a corridor that is the second-largest trucking bottleneck in the country, according to the American Transportation Research Institute.
Two previous presidents — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — pledged to fix the bridge, to no avail. Residents in Ohio and Kentucky told the New York Times they were optimistic for repairs to the bridge when McConnell and John Boehner, the former House Speaker who represented a district north of Cincinnati, were both in power in Congress, but action did not come.
Ohio leaders are hopeful the funds will help repair the bridge, as well as the nearly 1,400 bridges and 5,000 miles of highways in the state that are in poor condition, according to the White House.
During the signing ceremony Monday afternoon, Biden will be joined by the bipartisan lawmakers who helped craft the final infrastructure deal, following negotiations that concluded in June. Sixty-three percent of Americans support the massive public works investment, according to a new ABC News-Washington Post poll.
