Biden’s Expansive Infrastructure Plan Hits Close to Home for McConnell

President Biden’s infrastructure plan could fund a long-overdue revamp of the Brent Spence Bridge between Ohio and Kentucky. But the Senate Republican leader opposes it.

CINCINNATI — Early one November morning last year, a tractor-trailer hauling potassium hydroxide crashed into another truck that had jackknifed on the Brent Spence Bridge, igniting an enormous fire over the Ohio River that shut down the antiquated span connecting Cincinnati and northern Kentucky for six weeks. Daily commutes were snarled. Shipping delays rippled across the eastern United States. And residents who had grown accustomed to intractable fights among politicians over how to update the unsightly and overburdened choke point — and how to pay for it — had a glimmer of hope that, finally, something might get done. “After the fire, I thought for sure it’s going to happen now,” said Paul Verst, who estimates the shutdown cost his logistics company in Cincinnati $30,000 a month in delays.