U.S. Rep. Lawrence Praises President Biden on Historic Infrastructure Package

Press Release

Today, U.S. Representative Brenda L. Lawrence (MI-14) released the following statement on President Biden's historic infrastructure package: The American Jobs Plan. This proposal includes building world-class transportation, water, and energy infrastructure while creating good-paying jobs. To view President Biden's proposal, click here. Rep. Lawrence introduced a bill on February 25th to repair and invest in our country's water infrastructure, and led a letter to President Biden urging him to include provisions from the bill in his infrastructure plan.

"Now more than ever, we need to fix our nation's crumbling infrastructure. There's been too much talk and not enough action. President Biden knows that, and it's why he's committed to meaningful action with his historic American Jobs Plan," said Rep. Lawrence. "This transformational infrastructure package fixes our roads, bridges, and transit systems; invests in workforce development, manufacturing, and clean energy; and creates good-paying jobs. As a champion of water justice, I'm grateful this package includes provisions from my water infrastructure bill to increase access to safe, clean drinking water and replace lead pipes. This comprehensive plan makes the necessary investments in our country while also tackling climate change and inequities in our communities."

Specifically, President Biden's plan will:

Fix highways, rebuild bridges, upgrade ports, airports and transit systems. The President's plan will modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main-streets. It will fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction. It also will repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, providing critical linkages to communities. And, it will replace thousands of buses and rail cars, repair hundreds of stations, renew airports, and expand transit and rail into new communities.
Deliver clean drinking water, a renewed electric grid, and high-speed broadband to all Americans. President Biden's plan will eliminate all lead pipes and service lines in our drinking water systems, improving the health of our country's children and communities of color. It will put hundreds of thousands of people to work laying thousands of miles of transmission lines and capping hundreds of thousands of orphan oil and gas wells and abandoned mines. And, it will bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to every American, including the more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds.
Build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial buildings, modernize our nation's schools and child care facilities, and upgrade veterans' hospitals and federal buildings. President Biden's plan will create good jobs building, rehabilitating, and retrofitting affordable, accessible, energy efficient, and resilient housing, commercial buildings, schools, and child care facilities all over the country, while also vastly improving our nation's federal facilities, especially those that serve veterans.
Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers. These workers -- the majority of whom are women of color -- have been underpaid and undervalued for too long. The President's plan makes substantial investments in the infrastructure of our care economy, starting by creating new and better jobs for caregiving workers. His plan will provide home and community-based care for individuals who otherwise would need to wait as many as five years to get the services they badly need.
Revitalize manufacturing, secure U.S. supply chains, invest in R&D, and train Americans for the jobs of the future. President Biden's plan will ensure that the best, diverse minds in America are put to work creating the innovations of the future while creating hundreds of thousands of quality jobs today. Our workers will build and make things in every part of America, and they will be trained for well-paying, middle-class jobs.
Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers. By ensuring that American taxpayers' dollars benefit working families and their communities, and not multinational corporations or foreign governments, the plan will require that goods and materials are made in America and shipped on U.S.-flag, U.S.-crewed vessels. The plan also will ensure that Americans who have endured systemic discrimination and exclusion for generations finally have a fair shot at obtaining good paying jobs and being part of a union.

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