Several southwest Minnesota mayors, including Luverne Mayor Pat Baustian, met with Sen. Amy Klobuchar on a Zoom call Friday, Jan. 14, to talk about infrastructure needs in their communities.
Klobuchar was a vocal supporter of the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted in November, and she told the mayors she wanted to hear about their needs for the funding.
“I want to find out what projects you have, and what your priorities are,” she said.
The legislation devotes federal resources to improving Minnesota’s roads, rail systems, and public transit, as well as building high-speed broadband infrastructure and repairing and replacing bridges and highways.
“This is the largest investment in our nation’s infrastructure in history,” Klobuchar said.
“It literally is going to give us this opportunity we’ve been waiting for to repair and transform everything from highways and bridges to broadband to water infrastructure to high-speed internet.”
She said she served on the committee that secured funding for broadband.
“We have 144,000 Minnesotans in areas without highspeed internet,” Klobuchar said. “It’s a huge problem, and we’re getting hundreds of millions of dollars for broadband.”
Baustian assured her that broadband improvements in Rock County were a “game changer” for businesses and students, especially during Covid when remote learning and working were important.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill puts $23.5 billion in supplemental appropriations for the drinking water and clean water state revolving funds, and $1 billion for rural water projects through the Bureau of Reclamation.
“We’re very proud of what we’ve done with Lewis and Clark,” Klobuchar said.
“The people on this call have worked for a long, long time on this.”
Lewis and Clark is expected to secure $132 million from the Bureau of Reclamation as a result of the bill, and it will accelerate construction and allow the system to increase capacity.
Baustian said this is currently a priority in Luverne.
“The city of Luverne waited 25 years to get hooked up,” Baustian said.
“This (expansion) will give Luverne an additional 400,000 gallons of water per day, on top of the 820,000 we get already.”
He said Rock County agribusinesses have been benefiting from the Lewis and Clark access through the rural water connection, allowing them to grow and expand.
“It’s a huge positive for us going forward,” he said.
Baustian said he was also pleased to see funding dedicated to the electric vehicle infrastructure.
Luverne owns its electric utility and will apply for grants to install fast chargers (which can cost up to $100,000) around town.
“We intend to build out Luverne as an electric-vehicle-friendly community so that electric vehicles can pull off I-90 and stay in our hotels and use our restaurants and put their bikes on our bike paths and visit our community,” Baustian said.
Klobuchar said the legislation will give municipalities opportunities to apply for these and other federal grants. “And it will give me more opportunities to help you,” she said.
She pointed out that workers will be needed to build the projects, and the infrastructure bill supports apprenticeships, skills training, and ways to get workers into areas with labor shortages.
“We’re not going to have a shortage of sports marketing degrees,” Klobuchar said.
“We’re going to have a shortage of the people who are going to build these projects — truck drivers, school bus drivers, masons, electricians, plumbers and people who are out there in the trades.”
Mayors on the Zoom call expressed the need for workforce housing and child care in order to provide companies what they need for their workers in order to grow and expand.
In addition to Baustian, the call with Klobuchar and her staff included Pipestone Mayor Myron Koets, Tyler Mayor Joan Jagt and Slayton Mayor Miron Carney.