EXCLUSIVE: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pitches Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on Heartland Signal

On Tuesday, WCPT 820AM’s Patti Vasquez sat down with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to discuss the infrastructure investments the Biden administration has focused on since 2021.

In the first year of President Joe Biden’s term, Congress passed the bipartisan infrastructure law, which dedicated over $1 trillion to roads, bridges, railways and expanded broadband internet access.

“The whole idea was to position us to make those generational investments around the country that are going to improve our infrastructure,” Buttigieg said. “To have reached this point, where we’re able to announce so many projects just the month of December alone has been full of exciting announcements about what we’re actually doing with these dollars.”

The interview comes less than a week after the White House announced a fresh round of funding, which dedicated $8.2 billion to rail projects across the nation. Chicago’s Union Station will be among the facilities to receive improvements and capacity expansion, while rail lines in Pennsylvania and Montana will receive upgrades. Also, the first major high-speed rail investment in the U.S. will begin in California.

“These [projects] are here because President Biden pushed so hard for that Bipartisan Infrastructure law,” Buttigieg said. “And we were even able to get a number of Republicans to come over and work with Democrats, work with me, work with the president, to make this happen. And now it’s about delivery, and we’re so excited about getting these projects done. And even before the projects are done, we’re so excited about the good-paying jobs that they’re creating including jobs in the building trades that are more and more open to people who maybe didn’t think of themselves as having a place in those construction trades jobs in the past.”

In a press release, the White House said it expects tens of thousands of construction jobs to be created in wake of the new projects, adding to the millions of total jobs generated under the administration’s first term.

“Especially with our work to encourage day care and childcare facilities at construction sites,” Buttigieg continued. “I saw that at the airport terminal project in Pittsburgh and other places around the country. This is really about opportunity. In the short, building the projects. In the long term, using the infrastructure that those projects create and improve.”