Speaker Pelosi visits Atlanta to tout 'Inflation Reduction Act' funding
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Atlanta to talk funding for split neighborhoods
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined Congresswoman Nikema Williams at Big Bethel AME Church in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn District on Thursday. They discussed grant funding to reconnect neighborhood that were split after Congress passed the 1956 Federal Highway Transportation Act.
ATLANTA - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi toured Atlanta's Sweet Auburn District Thursday and took part in a roundtable discussion with community leaders about how they can use new grant funding set aside as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Congress passed the multi-billion dollar spending package last month.
"Atlanta has the opportunity to be an example to the country," said Speaker Pelosi, during the event at Big Bethel AME Church.
Congresswoman Nikema Williams, D-Georgia, joined the speaker to highlight $3 billion in new funding allocated to reconnect neighborhoods impacted by transportation infrastructure.
"We must undo the damage of the 1956 Federal Highway [Transportation] Act, which intentionally decimated neighborhoods, like the Sweet Auburn District, that were thriving Black communities," said Rep. Williams. "The downtown connector only a few feet behind us that you can hear in the background was one of the most destructive interstates built in this country."
Rep. Williams pointed to higher rates of asthma for people living in the area as well as hotter temperatures because of idling cars.
"Sadly, this isn't the only place where communities were divided in Atlanta. I-20 was built down through the center of the West End and Summerhill neighborhoods where these same ills are found," Rep. Williams explained.
The grant funding goes hand-in-hand with the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, which is based on legislation Congresswoman Williams wrote and approved as part of the infrastructure bill.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears with Rep. Nikema Williams in Atlanta (Credit: Jim Zorn/FOX 5).
While Rep. Williams said some areas have added green space underneath highway overpasses or rerouted interstates, it will ultimately be up to the communities that apply for grants to decide how best to make their communities whole.
"We need to make sure that we're bringing the community into these conversations so that the businesses that are impacted, the residents, the historic pieces of infrastructure that we have, like Big Bethel, are part of that conversation," said Rep. Williams.
Meanwhile, Republicans have been critical of the legislative package and argued the additional spending will hurt the economy.
"We are facing an economic recession and continue to battle 40-year high inflation. So as millions of Americans struggle to buy groceries, fill up their gas tanks, afford rent and pay utility bills, Democrats are ramming through their tax and spend bill that will only make life worse," Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia, said on the House Floor during debate on the bill last month.
Groups who want to apply for the grant pilot program can do so by visiting grants.gov.