WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – The Ministry of Transport has announced new grants for the modernization of ports across the country.
Transport Minister Pete Butigic said $ 450 million in grants from the bipartisan infrastructure law would help address supply chain problems and inflation.
“To fund improvements from increasing capacity to connecting the railways to our port network, all that will help ports move more efficiently in this country,” said Transport Minister Pete Buttigig.
Secretary Butigic said the modernization of the ports would solve the supply chain problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic, fix the decades-long investment and provide much-needed upgrades to handle modern ships.
“Sometimes, even in our largest ports, a brand new canal has to be built to a deeper level or a bridge replaced because these ships are so big that they can’t fit under it,” Butigig said.
Butygic said that these investments are necessary for the United States to remain a world leader and ultimately contribute to lower commodity prices.
However, upgrading the physical infrastructure can take years.
Butigig said that is why the administration is also working on more immediate solutions.
“Pressing to work 24/7, creating things like temporary pop-up container sites to clean up some containers inside the country when there’s not enough space in the ports themselves,” Butigig explained.
Butigieg said another attempt to solve supply chain problems was to push the administration to produce more things domestically.