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President Joe Biden on Wednesday afternoon is slated to deliver a speech in Baltimore on a plan for congested U.S. ports, waterways and related facilities that his administration has rolled out after Congress passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“He’ll talk about the steps his Administration is taking right now to address those forces squeezing the middle class, and the investments we’re making to build a stronger, more resilient economy and supply chain for decades to come,” the White House said in a statement. He also will speak about “addressing bottlenecks like the 150 year-old train tunnel in the heart of Baltimore,” the statement said.
The Biden administration’s plan for ports, announced Tuesday, includes alleviating congestion at the Port of Savannah by funding the Georgia Port Authority’s pop-up container yards project, launching programs to modernize ports and marine highways with more than $240 million in grant funding within the next 45 days, identifying construction projects for the Army Corps of Engineers at coastal ports and inland waterways within the next 60 days, and calling for new data standards for goods movement.
The bipartisan infrastructure
PAVE,
bill — approved by the House late Friday and by the Senate in August — provides $17 billion for ports and waterways. It has an overall price tag of about $1 trillion, with around $550 billion in new public-works spending above what already was expected in future federal investments. Biden is expected to sign the measure soon.
U.S. stocks
SPX,
COMP,
traded flat to lower on Wednesday after an October reading on inflation came in hotter than expected, showing a 6.2% rise over the past year.
“Inflation hurts Americans pocketbooks, and reversing this trend is a top priority for me,” Biden said in a statement following the new data for the consumer price index, or CPI.
“I am travelling to Baltimore today to highlight how my Infrastructure Bill will bring down these costs, reduce these bottlenecks, and make goods more available and less costly,” the president added.
