US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg drew a variety of local and tribal officials during his trip to Phoenix last weekend – all focused on getting money for bridges, roads, broadband connections and other infrastructure projects.
US MP Tom O’Halleran, who represents southern Gila County and much of the eastern half of Arizona, hosted the Valley Tour and was involved in projects in his sprawling district.
Navajo County Supervisor Dawnafe Whitesinger also met with the Secretary of Transportation who is driving President Joe Biden’s $ 1.6 trillion infrastructure plan. A slimmed-down, bipartisan version of the $ 600 billion bill is currently stuck in the U.S. Senate calling for 10 Republican votes.
O’Halleran, who is developing a top 10 list of infrastructure projects in his district, said rural Arizona has been falling short for decades.
“Arizona residents are forced to drive on some of the most dangerous, obsolete roads in America, putting First Ward families at risk every day on their way to work and school. To that end, I was pleased to welcome Secretary Buttigieg to our district and show him one of the long-overlooked infrastructure projects affecting the daily life and safety of rural and tribal families throughout southern Arizona, “said O’Halleran.
Meanwhile, Congress has also repealed rules that prevented “ear tagging,” the practice of letting Congressman projects be pegged into appropriation laws. Former Senator John McCain was once an important method of rounding votes for large bills and fought a long battle to get rid of ear tags. Instead, he argued that every federally funded project should go through the selection and evaluation process set up by the funding agency.
O’Halleran said the grants committee asked each member to come up with a top 10 list of projects. These projects could eventually end up in the infrastructure package of the congress or be financed in frills through the regular budgeting process.
The O’Halleran District encompasses a variety of tribal communities from the outskirts of Tucson to the Utah border, including the San Carlos Apache Tribe in southern Gila County.
Some of the projects on O’Halleran’s list in rural and tribal areas of northern Arizona include:
• Winslow Flood Protection Project: US $ 750,000 for the Army Corps of Engineers to design an upgrade to the levees protecting Winslow from potential flooding on the Little Colorado River. Once the corps has completed the draft, the project can be brought into line with funding.
• Globe Flood Control: $ 750,000 for a design and feasibility study to create flood control works at McCormick Wash, Globe. The existing dyke system is considered to be vulnerable to a flood that could otherwise rage over Globe.
• Navajo Nation Water Transportation: US $ 500,000 to allow the Navajo Nation EPA to regularly deliver drinking water to remote homes that are not connected to a major water system.
• San Carlos Apache College Library and Computing Center: $ 871,500 for San Carlos Apache College to renovate, equip, and staff a library and computing center. This would expand higher education opportunities to a long underserved community.
• Superior Economic Development Center: The $ 2 million project would create an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center to promote new businesses, a workforce training center to train residents in the high-paying craft trades demanded by the local industry, and a multi-generation center with full-service workers for new jobs in industry and to live in the community.
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