Contact: Jill Zuckman
Tel.: (202) 366-4570
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood today announced grants totaling $2.4 million for two Wisconsin airports under the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
“This Administration is committed to getting the U.S. economy going again and these grants are part of making that happen,” said Secretary LaHood. “We’re ahead of schedule in distributing Recovery funds for our aviation system, putting people back to work in Wisconsin while improving the safety of our nation’s airports and runways.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded $1.25 million to Rhinelander-Oneida County Airport to rehabilitate a taxiway, and $1.17 million to Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay to rehabilitate a runway.
About 3,400 airports designated as part of the national airport system are eligible to receive Recovery Act funds. The FAA is moving swiftly to work with airport sponsors to ensure that eligible projects have completed, or nearly completed, design and planning requirements.
Under the Recovery Act, the FAA received $1.1 billion for qualified airports on a discretionary basis. That funding will be allocated based on a project priority system that addresses airport safety and security, infrastructure, runway safety, increased capacity, and mitigation of environmental impacts.
As part of the Recovery Act, the Department of Transportation is distributing $48 billion to rebuild roads, bridges, highways, ports, mass transit projects and airport runways, among other things. The FAA has nearly completed allocating all of its portion of the funds, distributing them to airports in every state of the country.
