(Bloomberg) — West Virginia, home to Joe Manchin whose Senate vote is key to President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, is set to receive the second highest total of any state next year from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s rural highway program.
The state will get $37 million in the fiscal year that begins in October as part of a new round of funding announced Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Transportation will dole out $246 million for Appalachian highways as part of infrastructure legislation passed by Congress in November. Alabama is the top recipient, with $73 million.
The agency said the money, part of a $1.2 billion pot of money that was designated for rural highways in the $550 billion infrastructure law, will account for a 146% increase over federal spending on rural highways in the fiscal year that ends in September.
The announcement comes as Biden is seeking to remind voters of his legislative victory on infrastructure and pivot away from a string of recent disappointments, including the recent collapse of voting rights legislation, inflation reaching a 40-year high and the U.S. Supreme Court blocking his workplace vaccine mandate.
A multitrillion-dollar social and climate spending package was derailed in the evenly split senate after Manchin said he could not vote for it.
The Transportation Department said the new road money is being used to fund “the timely completion of designated corridors in 11 states in the Appalachian region.”
“From big cities to small towns, every American community deserves reliable access to our transportation system,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement touting Biden’s efforts to win approval for the legislation last year.
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