three years ago pete boudijedge was the mayor of south bend indiana
a city with only about 160 traffic lights today mayor pete is secretary pete head of the united
states department of transportation thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year
he's overseeing one of the most significant investments in america's bridges roads and
rails in more than half a century bootage edge is 40 years old a harvard graduate road scholar and
former navy reserve officer who ran for the democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
now he's dealing with the pandemic related supply chain crisis and trying to ensure
that hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are well spent on aging transportation systems
in desperate need of repair the story will continue in a moment
at about 6 30 a.m on january 28th this bridge in pittsburgh pennsylvania collapsed
while a bus and some cars were driving across it
no one was killed but several people were injured federal investigators are trying to understand why
safety inspectors hadn't warned that a collapse was imminent when somebody's driving over a bridge
should they feel confident yeah i mean we have to make sure that it's safe there's inspection
standards that we set federally but but here's the issue if a bridge is deteriorating you're
going to feel the consequences of that because in order to keep it safe it might have to be closed
42 percent of america's bridges are at least 50 years old and more than 7 percent are considered
structurally deficient including this one not far from secretary pete butterjudge's office
in washington dc so this does not look great i mean look at it right it tells the story
right there we're right by uh you know a thriving economic area in the nation's capital and you got
literally little bits of rust coming off of pipes on the underside of a bridge that's actually from
from that yeah i think so i think that used to be this bridge when grading the overall state
of this country's infrastructure the american society of civil engineers recently gave the u.s
a c-minus how is it possible that a country like the united states gets a c-minus on infrastructure
well you get what you pay for and for pretty much as long as i've been alive our country has been
under investing in public things for a long time uh everybody here in washington said we got to do
this we're going to do this it's finally happened but we've got a lot of time to make up for
all right the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by president biden in november
guarantees at least 850 billion dollars of spending over the next five years
there's 55 billion dollars to help communities remove lead pipes and deliver clean drinking
water 65 billion to expand broadband internet service and make it more affordable and another
65 billion dollars to upgrade the nation's power grid many federal agencies are involved but pete
buddha judges department of transportation will be the largest recipient of funds distributing
more than 560 billion dollars over five years to improve everything from tunnels bridges and roads
to mass transit ports and airports when was the last time that the country invested this amount
of money in infrastructure when it comes to roads and bridges we haven't invested at this level
since the eisenhower administration since they built the interstate highway system in the first
place what are people going to see different in their lives or in their communities because of
this investment i think one of the first things you're going to notice is accelerated work on
roads and bridges it's not just the big famous bridges in our biggest cities this is thousands of
bridges around the country one of the many things pennsylvania will do with its infrastructure money
is rebuild that bridge that collapsed in pittsburgh and washington dc plans to fix
the h street bridge we saw near union station but in many cases it's too early to know exactly which
projects will be funded that's because some of the money will be awarded by bootage and his staff to
communities that will compete for discretionary grants but more money is being sent directly to
the states where governors and local leaders will decide how to spend it a lot of communities when
they get money their emphasis is on building new roads you're trying to emphasize fixing existing
roads if that's not always popular there's always a bias toward the shiny new thing but
the truth is as a country we've got to take care of what we've got in earlier versions of the bill
there were provisions that would have required states to dedicate money to repairing freeways
before building new ones those provisions were taken out the requirements aren't there but it's
still a good idea we're still going to encourage it there's a research showing that historically
more of the grant money goes to states that voted for the party in power and obama underwent blue
states under president trump went to red states is that going to happen again we're really focused on
taking those party politics out of the picture new administration says yeah that's what we're
doing but historically that is what happens but look at what we're actually doing so this last
round of discretionary grants for example a billion dollars that i had the final sign
off on we actually went over the congressional requirement for how much goes to rural areas
rural areas aren't known for supporting my political party but they do have a lot of need
and so we're funding good projects there moody's analytics estimates the infrastructure law will
create 872 000 new jobs by late 2025 projects long on the drawing board may finally happen
for example the hudson river train tunnel that runs between new york and new jersey
is a crucial artery local leaders have been trying to upgrade for years it was absolute state of the
art best construction technology 110 years ago but we're going deep into 1910 yeah and we're
going deep into the 21st century still depending on that 100 year old infrastructure the tunnel so
badly damaged crews have to work on it at night so pieces of it don't fall on the tracks during
the day if an expected infrastructure grant comes through construction of a new tunnel could finally
begin next year kentucky governor andy beshear has said he'd like to use infrastructure money
to help build a companion to the congested brent spence bridge that connects kentucky and ohio
airports all over the country will be receiving money this year to upgrade their runways and
terminals lax will get 79 million dollars chicago o'hare 74 million and atlanta's international
airport 92 million dollars secretary bootage plans to use some of the infrastructure money
to revitalize low-income black neighborhoods that were divided or damaged by the construction
of interstate highways but florida governor ron desantis has expressed some skepticism about that
i mean i heard some stuff some weird stuff from the secretary of transportation trying to you
know make this about social issues and and to me a road's a road i mean it's not yet so i so i don't
know i mean i'd i'd have to take a look at that is a road a road of course a road is a road but
if a road was built in such a way that it removed destroyed or divided a community of color that's
something we got to deal with what do you do about it because you're not going to reroute a highway
well you might if federal dollars were used to divide a neighborhood or a city federal dollars
should be used to reconnect it now that doesn't always mean the highway has to go completely
maybe you got to bridge over it or around it or introduce transit or different options but
the point is transportation should always connect never divide the a's are 69 the nays are 30. the
passage of the infrastructure bill in the senate was the result of some serious bridge building
five republican and five democratic senators negotiated the deal and convinced their colleagues
to support it in the house of representatives 200 republicans and six democrats voted against
the legislation but that didn't stop many of them from later claiming credit for the money it gave
to their districts when you hear a member of congress who did not vote for this money
turning around and taking credit for the money that is coming to their district
it's an amazing thing isn't it it's as irritating as that can be as long as the project gets done as
long as it benefits the people who live there the politics are what they are if you hadn't noticed
pete buttige is himself a very skilled politician in 2019 when he announced he was running for the
democratic presidential nomination most people didn't know him and couldn't pronounce his name
but they quickly learned he led the field in iowa along with bernie sanders and finished a close
second in new hampshire when he dropped out of the race in march 2020 he endorsed joe biden who later
offered him a cabinet post when he was sworn in he became the first openly gay cabinet secretary
to be confirmed by congress congratulations mr secretary did you think about it on that day
yeah yeah i mean it was hard not to think about it it wasn't that long ago that being gay meant
that you couldn't have any job in the federal government never mind being a soldier or a cabinet
officer you couldn't be a bookkeeper and you could be fired if you were and many people were
and to know now that that i can be who i am and have this job i know what that means for a lot of
people in august 2021 buddha judge and his husband chaston adopted newborn twins a boy and a girl
the twins were born prematurely and their son gus spent time in intensive care but as supply chain
problems mounted last fall bootage came under attack for taking parental leave during a crisis
pete but a judge has been on leave from his job since august after adopting a child paternity
leave they call it trying to figure out how to breastfeed no word on how that went
were you surprised by by that criticism a little bit yeah because some of it came from
corners that uh talk a lot about family values one thing i want to make sure people understood
was that like so many parents have to do took care of my kids and i took care of business his agency
has so far made hundreds of millions of dollars available to improve ports across the country but
supply chain problems remain a major challenge can you say when the supply chain issue will be solved
when the pandemic ends it'll get a lot better but it's going to take years to have the kind of
transportation infrastructure that we really need to weather the next shock whether it's a pandemic
or who knows a cyber attack certainly more extreme weather related to climate change we've got to get
more resilient for that the infrastructure law includes an unprecedented 66 billion
dollars over five years for amtrak to improve its existing rails and tunnels and expand its service
there's also five billion dollars to help build a network of charging stations across the country
for electric vehicles but most of the transportation money is going
to roads highways and bridges there's folks who've looked at the infrastructure bill and
don't really see it having a net positive impact on climate you know all the concrete that's being
made a steel that's being made all that is a huge release of carbon that's why we've got to spend
these dollars in a smart way right the more we get people onto transit give them good transit options
the less they have to drive and then when they are driving the more we get them in electric
vehicles that's good for the climate too in june we awarded georgia ports authority a 47
million dollar grant giving infrastructure money to local leaders all over the country
could prove to be very good for pete buttige should he decide to run for national office again
but it will take many years to complete some of these projects and before there are new bridges
and improved roads there will be lots of closed lanes and traffic jams we were curious what the
american society of civil engineers the group that gave the nation's current infrastructure a c minus
thought the infusion of federal funds would accomplish one of their top officials told us
it was a very positive development but still only about half of what's needed
she says that she hopes that the infrastructure grade seven years from now would be a b
with all the money that's being spent
still only a b have you ever gotten a b in your life you strike me as the kind of guy
who hasn't gotten a lot of b's in your life like uh you know we're always shooting for a plus but
this isn't like building a house this is building a country literally and some of
these things do take time each passing year you see more results and it is going to take a while
pete buddha judges future in politics i'm going to ask you a question which i know
you're not going to answer but i'm just curious to see how you don't answer it
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