Here in Alaska, it's common to say that there are two seasons: Winter and road work. Maintaining the nation's infrastructure, including roads, is a 24/7/365 task, and the federal Department of Transportation has, since its inception, handed out a lot of grants for specific infrastructure projects. Now, we can argue about how inefficient it is to conduct business this way, to channel taxpayer dollars through yet another layer of bureaucracy before dribbling it back out to the states, but that's the system we have.

That system, under Joe Biden and "Pothole Pete" Buttigieg, was broken. Now the Trump administration and the new Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, is fixing it - and over 400 infrastucture grants have been stripped of stupid Biden-era red tape and approved.

The Transportation Department has approved close to $5 billion in infrastructure funding since the change in administration, chipping away at an inherited backlog of more than 3,200 unobligated grants, the department announced Wednesday.

The nearly $5 billion is spread among 405 infrastructure grants – about 13% of what the administration called the “Biden-Buttigieg backlog” – including 76 just-approved grants totaling more than $607 million.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, America is building again,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

This is money that was appropriated under the Biden term, but which went nowhere, in large part because of stupid DEI and odious environmental requirements. And, as Secretary Duffy notes, these policies prevented anything from getting done; the Biden administration not only didn't build back better, they didn't build back at all. As in so many areas, the Biden administration's legacy in infrastructure was a litany of failure.

Duffy attributed the “unprecedented” backlog of grants to some of the previous administration’s social and climate priorities.

“The last administration claimed to ‘build back better,’ but they didn’t build back anything. Instead, they inserted wasteful social justice and green mandates into grants that drove up construction costs and delayed projects. We’ll continue to move at lightning speed to get shovels in the ground and projects up and running,” Duffy said.

So, these are "shovel-ready jobs?" I seem to remember trying that before with less than stunning success, or indeed, without any success at all. But there's a new sheriff in town; the hapless Pothole Pete has been replaced, just as Joe Biden was replaced by a president who can not only tell you what day of the week it is but who is always focused on what needs done, and has in this second term, picked the right people to do it; Secretary Duffy is one such, a fellow who doesn't hesitate to spit on his hands and start digging.

As for the removal of the DEI and "green" requirements, good riddance, and may we never see their like again.

See Also: Trump Hilariously Slaps Pete Buttigieg Around, Promises Big Changes With National Airspace

Watch: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Addresses Air Travel Concerns Head-On on 'Meet the Press'

Note that there are some infrastructure projects, such as highways that extend through several states (think of the interstate highway system), that are legitimately under the purview of the federal government. That's what the Department of Transportation really ought to be focused on, that and things like air traffic control - again, an interstate system. But this is the system we have, and at least now it's working.

And again, we see what a difference a president can make.

Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.

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