Sen. Klobuchar Highlights Federal Funding Importance in Minnesota

DULUTH, Minn. — Senator Klobuchar visited Duluth on Friday to highlight multiple projects in need of federal funding.

The Duluth International Airport, the lift bridge, the Blatnik bridge, the Lakewood Water Treatment Plant, and many others are all projects in our area that are in need of federal funding to help keep Duluth’s infrastructure up-to-date.

But recent cuts in government spending has caused uncertainty on whenever these projects will be fully supported by the federal government.

Senator Klobuchar said that the federal government has to be clearer so that people can feel safe contribute to the economy and not stretch local lawmakers thin on supporting the people they represent.

“There is a lot of court cases going on now, not about this funding, because we haven’t been frozen, but just about the fact that this money was allocated by Congress under the constitution,” said Senator Klobuchar. “We are article one. We have a right to do that. And a lot of these court cases are coming up where the judges are saying they’re right. This was allocated this way. This is done. You can’t stop it. So that’s what’s going on for future funding, like the water treatment plant, in a big way, that’s where we just are going to have to make our case for how the budget should look, and that we don’t want to have things cut out that we think are really important in the budget.”

Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert and Tom Werner, the executive director of the Duluth International Airport, joined Sen. Klobuchar to speak at Friday’s event.