Shortly after a freight ship collapsed right into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday, Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace tried responsible President Joe Biden’s facilities plans for the bridge’s devastating collapse. 

“Look at the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that was done a couple of years ago that the Left hails as this massive success,” the South Carolina representative told Newsmax. “It was mostly a Green New Deal.” She pointed out that only a portion of the money allocated by Biden’s infrastructure bill—$110 billion out of $1.2 trillion total—went towards roads and bridges like the one in Baltimore. “We’re not spending it on roads and bridges,” Mace said.

Her comments highlight how some Republicans have seized the Baltimore tragedy, which has left six people presumed dead, to criticize what they perceive as misplaced priorities in the Biden Administration’s infrastructure agenda. The response to the collapse is quickly becoming a critical test for Biden, who has championed infrastructure improvements as a cornerstone of his presidency and aims to convince voters ahead of the November election that he’s the best equipped to address infrastructure challenges.

“Fairly or unfairly, the Biden Administration will be judged by how quickly it can line up funding and how quickly it can rebuild the bridge,” says Andy Winkler, an expert in disaster and infrastructure issues at the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

Read More: 6 Construction Workers Presumed Dead. Baltimore Bridge Collapse: What to Know

As recovery operations continue, Biden announced on Tuesday that he directed his team to “step paradise and planet” to reopen the port and rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge “as quickly as humanly feasible.” The President additionally stated it’s his “intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge” and he anticipates Congress to sustain him. 

Moving swiftly to restore the bridge can aid Biden politically and provide him one more chance to show the necessity of his facilities schedule while he projects for re-election, states Len Foxwell, a Baltimore-based Democratic planner. “As terrible as this is, it gives the President and his team a chance to use this as a cautionary tale of what can happen to jobs, supply chains, and transportation mobility if something were to happen to our network of highways, bridges and overpasses,” he states. “The world is going to be watching to see how long it takes for us to rebuild and to repair. And to the extent that this Administration can demonstrate the ability to get that process started with alacrity, they will benefit politically.”

Over the last 2 years, Biden and key participants of his Administration have actually been attempting to offer citizens on the advantages of his facilities plans, taking a trip the nation to promote his flow of the 2021 bipartisan facilities costs—which supplies 10s of billions of bucks to jobs consisting of rail passages under the Hudson River, Everglades reconstruction, and bridge substitutes. The White House states it’s the biggest financial investment out of commission and rebuilding bridges considering that the interstate freeway system was completely built in 1992.

But persuading citizens that these facilities financial investments have actually straight boosted their lives can be a obstacle for the Biden project. A year after the facilities costs passed, surveys revealed that the majority of Americans had no concept Congress also passed the regulations—and currently a huge and deadly bridge collapse has actually taken nationwide headings.

Still, Foxwell doesn’t believe the end result of the 2024 political election will be picked the problem of facilities unless there’s a verifiable financial effect in the coming months, such as prevalent work loss or boosted grocery store rates as a result of the flattened bridge. “I don’t think it’s enough to influence the political behavior of voters,” he states, “but it gives Biden a renewed, perhaps fresh, opportunity to reinforce to the electorate why infrastructure was so important in the first place.”

While first examinations recommend the bridge was completely up to code, the effect of the collapse expands past prompt safety and security problems. The port plays a critical function in automobile delivery and utilizes over 15,000 employees, with causal sequences anticipated to be really felt in surrounding states like Pennsylvania, a vital swing state for Biden. Some 850,000 lorries undergo the port every year and greater than 30,000 lorries go across the bridge daily. A long term bridge closure, Winkler states, would certainly have far-ranging repercussions for the local economic climate and neighborhood companies.

“I think in moments like this people want to see presidential leadership, but in our federal system incidents like this require more of a partnership between local state and federal officials,” Winkler states. He anticipates the clean-up can take weeks, while it might take a number of years to completely restore the bridge. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recognized Tuesday that restoring “will not be quick” and “will not be inexpensive.”

Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic planner, disregarded efforts from Republicans to link the bridge collapse to wider facilities arguments. “The idea that Joe Biden is personally responsible for a 95,000-ton ship colliding with a bridge is ridiculous to anyone not living in a rightwing media bubble,” he states. “This has nothing to do with infrastructure.”