OPINION:
North Carolina is a state blessed with boundless natural beauty, with mountain ranges in the west and beaches in the east. With this diverse landscape comes unique challenges to maintaining and improving our infrastructure. North Carolina currently has more than 3,000 miles of highway considered to be in “poor condition” and nearly 1,500 bridges considered in “poor condition.”
As North Carolina’s senator, one of my top priorities has been ensuring our state has the resources needed to modernize our infrastructure system. Last year, I worked on the Senate’s historic bipartisan infrastructure package, which resulted in a major win for the nation. I worked on a bipartisan basis to successfully negotiate and draft the bipartisan infrastructure bill because I recognized the importance of investing in and strengthening our infrastructure for future generations.
Contrary to some misinformation being floated around, the infrastructure bill is exclusively focused on investing in real infrastructure like roads, bridges, water systems, and our electrical grid. The $550 billion was paid for without raising taxes, and it will help generate billions in economic growth for decades to come in a fiscally responsible way, including re-using unspent unemployment insurance and unspent COVID-19 recovery funding rather than simply adding to our nation’s debt.
The Tar Heel state alone will receive $10 billion for future transportation and infrastructure projects, as the legislation provides much-needed funding to repair and improve our highways, roads, bridges, and airports. It also provides a large investment to expand broadband access in rural communities.
I worked hard to secure funding for North Carolina’s airports and ports. The millions of dollars included in the legislation will modernize and improve our state’s airports as more North Carolinians take to the skies and help upgrade our state’s ports.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill also takes a big step in addressing the challenges faced by North Carolina’s coastal communities, which are all too familiar with historic flooding events that have destroyed thousands of homes over the last few years. Following the destruction on our coast caused by Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, I worked with our state delegation to secure billions of dollars in disaster relief funding so communities could recover as quickly as possible.
I’ve also pushed for legislation that would address the bureaucratic delays that some of our communities, including Greenville, have faced that prevented them from beginning mitigation projects immediately following a natural disaster. The infrastructure bill takes these challenges into account, and many of our coastal towns will now receive much-needed aid through the Climate Ready Coasts initiative so they can invest more in climate resiliency to be better prepared for future natural disasters.
Most Americans, especially those in unserved communities, would agree that broadband is real infrastructure. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the disparities between communities in our state. Those that have near-universal access to broadband were better able to facilitate teleworking and remote learning, whereas residents in more rural areas of the state with limited access to broadband simply didn’t have that luxury.
To close this gap, the infrastructure bill provides $100 million for broadband services for the nearly 400,000 North Carolinians who still do not have access to high-speed internet. We are already beginning to see these investments being deployed, as earlier this year, I had the honor of announcing broadband expansion in Lenoir County, which will bring high-speed internet to more than 15,000 households. North Carolina will receive its fair share of additional broadband funding, on top of the $100 million based on unserved areas in our state.
Although we have made tremendous progress in improving infrastructure, we cannot take our foot off the pedal. Many challenges remain ahead. The 40-year high runaway inflation hitting American families also poses a direct threat to some of the infrastructure projects funded in the bipartisan bill, as the prices for construction materials are skyrocketing. Unless the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats stop their out-of-control spending binges, inflation will continue to burden American families and businesses and cut into the potential of thousands of infrastructure projects across the nation.
I, for one, will remain committed to fiscal restraint and responsibility, in part to ensure we have a sustainable way of ensuring future generations have the infrastructure and transportation needed to keep America the most economically prosperous nation in the world.
• Senator Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Judiciary Committee. Before serving in the Senate, he was Speaker of the House in the North Carolina General Assembly where he played an instrumental role in enacting job-creating policies and reforming North Carolina’s tax and regulatory codes.
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