CINCINNATI, OH – Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) called on President Trump to keep his promises to Ohio workers and commit to meaningful investments in Ohio infrastructure. During his campaign, President Trump promised to replace Brent Spence Bridge and to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, promises he has failed to keep.

Brown today urged Trump to endorse two pieces of bipartisan legislation he introduced with Sen. Portman, the Bridge Investment Act and the Build America, Buy America Act, as a step toward keeping his promises. Brown and Senate Democrats have also released a plan to invest the $1 trillion President Trump promised for infrastructure projects that would rebuild and repair the nation’s infrastructure while creating millions of construction jobs. 

“President Trump made a lot of promises to Ohio workers and families, but he has failed to deliver on those promises. The President promised to fix the Brent Spence Bridge, to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure projects and to support American workers. Instead, we’ve seen a President who has betrayed workers by pursuing policies -- like his $1.5 trillion tax bill -- that favor the wealthy and big corporations over working families. I’ve introduced bipartisan legislation with Sen. Portman to fix our bridges and ensure infrastructure projects are completed with American materials by American workers. President Trump should step up, keep his promises to American workers by supporting these efforts and work to unite rather than further divide our country.”

More information on Senator Brown’s bills can be found below.

The Bridge Investment Act

This week, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed a highway package that includes U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rob Portman’s (R-OH) Bridge Investment Act, which establishes a competitive grant program to assist the repair and replacement of deficient and outdated bridges and ease the national bridge repair backlog. 

Brown and Portman’s bill included language which set aside funding that could help rehabilitate and replace nationally significant large bridges like the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati.  Brown and Portman’s bill also includes funding that could help repair regionally-important bridges like the Western Hills Viaduct.

The highway package passed this week includes $3.265 billion to fund the Senators’ bipartisan, bridge bill over the next five fiscal years, of which half of the funding is dedicated to large projects, like the Brent Spence.  The program requires all projects funded by the grants to use American-made steel and iron. In addition to the $3.265 billion provided to fund the grant program initially, the bill authorizes an additional $3.265 billion that could be provided to fund the new bridge program in the future through the annual appropriations process. 

The Build America, Buy America Act

This month, Sens. Brown and Portman along with Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN), Gary Peters (D-MI) introduced legislation to apply Buy America rules to all taxpayer-funded infrastructure and public works projects. Currently, Buy America rules have not been fully implemented with respect to all federal programs that provide grants for the construction of infrastructure. This means American-made iron, steel and manufactured products are required for some infrastructure projects, but not all. When Chinese- or Russian- made steel and other products are used instead of American products, it steals jobs from U.S. workers.

The Senators’ bipartisan bill, the Build America, Buy America Act, would implement Buy America rules across the board – ensuring that American taxpayer dollars are used to buy American-made iron, steel and manufactured products for any federally funded infrastructure projects. 

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