DeSantis launches website criticizing ‘political agenda’ of Biden infrastructure policies

TALLAHASSEE — 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 money for a nearly $1 million project to create a pedestrian bridge over a railway.

The governor said in his news 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 news 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.”

The website is: roadsarenotforpolitics.com.