A city in southwestern Utah is reeling after Donald Trump pulled funding for a major infrastructure project that was awarded under the Joe Biden administration, Politico reports.
St. George, Utah was awarded a $87.6 million federal grant from a $3.2 billion Biden-era program aimed at helping reconnect disadvantaged neighborhoods divided by roadways.
The funds were going towards widening the increasingly busy Interstate 15 to relieve major traffic issues that has plagued the city for years.
Washington County, where St George is located, overwhelmingly voted to send Trump back to the White House in 2024. The funding for the project vanished after Trump signed his ‘big beautiful bill’ into law last month, walking back several Biden-era policies.
Jimmie Hughes, a Republican City Council member in St George told Politico that the city may have been in a “baby out with the bathwater” situation.
“There’s a 2-mile stretch of that highway where you can’t get through,” Hughes added. The project “really was an answer to a lot of congestion. It’s a little bit heartbreaking, but we’re not giving up.”
Shawn Guzman, director of government affairs for St. George, explained that the project would have “allow[ed] us to accommodate the increased demands in vehicular traffic to get across I-15.”
“We think that this project falls squarely under the goals of Secretary Duffy and this administration’s to use funding for needed infrastructure projects,” he continued.
But, Duffy’s spokesperson Nate Sizemore told Politico that “Congress was right to cancel” the grant program because it “prioritized [diversity, equity and inclusion] and Green priorities while ignoring the core infrastructure needs of our country.”
The Department of Transportation is “removing Biden-era requirements that tied critical infrastructure funding to woke social justice and climate initiatives that diverted resources from the Department’s core mission,” Sizemore continued.
Utah still plans to move forward with the project, but it will likely be on a much smaller scale without the federal funds.
“It is too early to determine the details of what that will look like without the $87.6 million,” spokesperson for the Utah Department of Transportation Kevin Kitchen.
Every Republican lawmaker from Utah in the United States Congress voted to pass Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’
