Buttigieg pitches infrastructure fix
WASHINGTON >> Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called for a once in a generation infrastructure investment Thursday that would address a massive backlog in needed improvements for the nation’s roads, bridges and transit systems, while also tackling climate change.
Buttigieg avoided specifics on how it would be paid for, but said that the current level of investment poses “a threat to our collective future.”
“Across the country, we face a trillion-dollar backlog of needed repairs and improvements, with hundreds of billions of dollars in good projects already in the pipeline,” Buttigieg said. “We see other countries pulling ahead of us, with consequences for strategic and economic competition. By some measures, China spends more on infrastructure every year than the U.S. and Europe combined.”
The hearing exposed some of the obstacles that President Joe Biden’s administration will face as Congress takes up a public works buildout, testing Biden’s campaign promise to reach across the political aisle to address national problems.
Congress just passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and Republicans are wary of adding trillions more to the national debt. They are also worried about how far Democrats intend to broaden the scope of infrastructure to include investments designed to move the country toward net-zero carbon emissions.
“A transportation bill needs to be a transportation bill — not the Green New Deal,” said Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, referring to a sweeping Democratic plan to shift the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels. “This needs to be about roads and bridges . ... The more massive any bill becomes, the more bipartisanship suffers.”
Buttigieg’s appearance before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee came as Biden has been meeting with economic advisers on an emerging $3 trillion package of investments on infrastructure and domestic programs. He is set to release details in a speech in Pittsburgh next week.
WASHINGTON>> North Korea fired off multiple shortrange missiles this past weekend after denouncing Washington for going forward with joint military exercises with South Korea, according to people familiar with the situation.
The missile tests, which had not previously been reported, represent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first direct challenge to President Joe Biden, whose aides have not yet outlined their approach to the regime’s nuclear threat amid an ongoing review of U.S.-North Korea policy.
For weeks, U.S. defense officials warned that intelligence indicated that North Korea might carry out missile tests. The regime elevated its complaints about U.S. military exercises last week, with Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, warning that if the Biden administration “wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink.”
The tests put renewed pressure on the United States to develop a strategy to address a nuclear threat that has bedeviled successive Republican and Democratic administrations for decades. State Department spokesman Ned Price has said the Biden administration wants to develop a “new approach” to North Korea, but he has offered few details. U.S. diplomats have informed allies in Asia in recent weeks that the strategy will differ from President Donald Trump’s topdown approach of meeting directly with Kim Jong Un and President Barack Obama’s bottom-up formulation, which swore off engagement until Pyongyang changed its behavior.