Alabama — 1st District

The Republican candidates for Alabama’s 1st Congressional District largely agree that the $3.5 billion Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project needs more federal support, two years after it received the largest federal infrastructure grant in state history.

Some candidates also said tolls should not be part of the financing package.

The comments came during a Wednesday candidates’ forum in Daphne, 20 days before the May 19 primary.

The project received a record $550 million federal grant during the Biden administration, but it still has no start date. Most of the funding is expected to come from a low-interest loan through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. For the $3.5 billion project, the loan would total about $1.75 billion.

To repay the loan, the current financing plan includes a $2.50 one-way toll for frequent users.

Former U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl of Mobile said the “toll was a bad idea” when it was first proposed as part of a now-defunct public-private partnership. He said the project needs about $1 billion in federal funding and called it a “national defense issue.”

“We have to keep arguing it with the federal government,” Carl said.

State Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, said more federal support is needed through a state-federal partnership and that he is the person to help secure it.

“We have the money in place, the $550 million allocated to put footers down and Austal is clearing their parking lot,” Marques said about the project’s start. “We need to start today. We should have done this five years ago. I’ll go to Washington, D.C. to make this happen.”

Austin Sidwell of Fairhope said the project should not move forward with tolls, which remain part of the Alabama Department of Transportation’s financing plan.

“It’s not the taxpayers responsibility to fund this through a toll,” he said. “It affects multiple states and the federal government has a responsibility to fund this project.”

Joshua McKee of Robertsdale said, “there should be no problem getting the federal funding to build the bridge.” He said the money could be available without what he described as wasteful federal spending on aid to Ukraine. He also called for greater transparency in how contracts for the project are awarded.

John Mills of Newton said he did not support tolls and suggested that corporations should help fund the project. A public-private partnership was part of an earlier financing plan that Gov. Kay Ivey declared “dead” in 2019 after public opposition.

James Richardson of Headland said that while he does not support increasing the federal deficit, the I-10 project is a “national security matter” and should be built with transparency.

“It’s your tax dollars and you need to know what companies are linked to it,” Richardson said.

James Dees, a Fairhope resident and detective with the Mobile Police Department, was the only candidate to support tolls. He said the project should be financed through a pay-as-you-go model at the state and federal levels to reduce upfront costs.