Congressman Dwight Evans (D-PA-3rd) voted Friday evening for a landmark infrastructure bill to create millions of jobs and make long-overdue repairs to the nation’s roads, bridges, transit, water and sewer systems. He also voted for a House rule to clear the way to pass the Build Back Better Act in the near future.
The House vote sends the Senate-passed infrastructure bill to the desk of President Biden, who has said he’ll sign it.
“I’m happy to vote for this massive new investment in job-creating repairs and upgrades to our transit, roads, bridges, water, sewer and other systems,” Evans said. “And I also look forward to passage of the Build Back Better Act, which would be a historic investment in making child care, housing and prescription drugs more affordable. It would also be a historic investment in fighting climate change and would continue the Biden expansion of the Child Tax Credit that I voted for, which is on track to cut child poverty in half.”
The infrastructure bill includes $1 billion for Reconnecting Communities, an initiative Evans has co-led, which would help highway-divided neighborhoods like Nicetown, Chinatown and the Delaware River waterfront in Philadelphia. The Build Back Better Act includes another $4 billion for similar programs to help those neighborhoods across the country.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill would provide $550 billion in new federal funding for infrastructure, estimated to add millions of jobs over the next 10 years. It includes:
- $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit and improve accessibility for seniors and people with disabilities
- $110 billion of new funds for roads, bridges, and related projects; $66 billion for rail, which would include eliminating the Amtrak maintenance backlog and modernizing the Northeast Corridor
- $17 billion for ports
- $25 billion for airports
- $55 billion for clean drinking water systems
- $65 billion for broadband internet
- $7.5 billion to build out the first-ever national network of electric-vehicle chargers in the United States
- Over $50 billion to make communities safer from extreme weather and climate-related disasters and the nation’s infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks
- $21 billion for environmental cleanups
- $65 billion to modernize the electric grid
Evans represents Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes Northwest and West Philadelphia and parts of North, South, Southwest and Center City Philadelphia. During Evans’ first four years in Congress, his office has helped to return to or save more than $6.5 million for Philadelphians from federal agencies such as the IRS, Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs. His website is evans.house.gov and his social media handle is @RepDwightEvans on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Original source can be found here.
