DeSantis launches website bashing Biden infrastructure policies as ‘political agenda’
Hours before the presidential debate on Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a new website his administration created tracking the Biden Administration’s infrastructure policies, calling them a tool “to promote a political agenda.”
“In 2022, the Biden administration secretary of transportation launched a $1 billion transportation project that he said would combat ‘racist roads,’ and I’m thinking, like, everyone can drive our roads, I don’t know where you’re getting that,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis was referring to a pilot program launched by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg that would award $1 billion over five years to reconnect communities that have been cut off or disadvantaged by federal road building in the past.
A federal list of funded projects lists two in Florida. The city of Tampa received $5.3 million to help make a key downtown intersection safer and friendlier to pedestrians by reconfiguring a highway interchange. Defuniak Springs received most the funding for a nearly $1 million project to create a pedestrian bridge over a railway.
The governor said in his press conference that Florida is “one of the lowest states for receiving any money from this Biden infrastructure thing,” seemingly referring to a 2021 bill passed by Congress called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Improving infrastructure while mitigating the effects of climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are priorities of that legislation, according to a White House press release.
“We don’t do the strings attached,” DeSantis said. “We’re not going to allow the federal government to use purse strings to impose bad policies on the state of Florida.”
While DeSantis ran against former President Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, the two Florida-based Republican leaders have since made up, and DeSantis has promised to help his campaign.
The website announcement the day of the presidential presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden could be mere coincidence. But the contrasting approaches from Biden and Trump to climate change and energy are potential focal points of Thursday evening’s debate.
The Inflation Reduction Act, a key Biden initiative passed by Congress in 2022, is a multi-agency effort to confront “the existential threat of the climate crisis ... and drive the global clean energy economy forward,” according to a White House press release.
Trump, meanwhile, has been reportedly courting oil executives, promising them tax cuts and less regulation in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions.
The new website run by the Florida Department of Transportation — roadsarenotforpolitics.com — promotes how the state government is suing the Biden Administration over some of its infrastructure and environmental policies.
“Considering Florida’s legal victory against the Administration regarding its illegal greenhouse gas performance measure,” the Florida Department of Transportation is “emboldened to challenge the legality of several executive rulemakings.”
Two of those lawsuits focus on federal rules that will affect how projects are reviewed for environmental impact beginning on July 1 while emphasizing climate change and environmental justice efforts and how the government seeks to reduce gas emissions by cars and trucks.
The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association called the latter rule a “’whole-of-government effort’ to force gas cars out of the market.”
In total, Florida’s government has filed 50 lawsuits against the Biden Administration for rules like these, according to the DeSantis Administration’s new website. The site also claims that “only 25% of Florida’s transportation budget comes from the federal government, and the state is not slowing down on that commitment, with a planned $64 billion in infrastructure improvements through 2030.”
This story was originally published June 27, 2024 at 12:10 PM.