The White House is reviewing the merits of the proposed Indian Street Bridge as a response to a U.S. senator who included the span in his list of 100 questionable federal stimulus projects.

The review is being conducted only because it was raised by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., not because it is a concern of the White House.

The review could be quickly wrapped up as the White House has already determined that one-third of the items highlighted by Coburn in a report released Tuesday are not stimulus projects or are misleading characterizations of stimulus projects.

Ed DeSeve, senior advisor to President Obama on the Recovery Act, stated that Coburn’s report appears to be more of an objection to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act than of the projects. Yet, he added, that with more than 20,000 Recovery Act projects approved, there are bound to be some mistakes, and the White House will review them when they are brought up.

“When we find them, we have been transparent about it, and worked on a bipartisan basis to shut them down immediately,” DeSeve said. “Sen. Coburn’s report, however, is filled with inaccuracies, including criticisms of projects that have already been stopped, projects that never were approved, and some projects that are working quite well.”

Coburn had questioned the “shovel-ready” status of the Indian Street Bridge, which is projected to create 3,500 temporary construction jobs. He also noted that the state has yet to acquire all the property needed to build the bridge.

State officials repeatedly have said the bridge to provide a second link between Palm City and Stuart is “shovel-ready” as they can begin work as they continue the land acquisition process. According to the state Department of Transportation, the design-build contract for the bridge has work starting in early 2010 and being completed by the first quarter of 2012.

Supporters say the span – which still faces a federal environmental lawsuit by Palm City resident Odias Smith – will ease traffic, aid hurricane evacuations and temporarily create about 3,500 construction jobs.

The project tops all stimulus transportation projects in Florida.

By Jim Turner

Tags: bridge, contract, critical, federal, Florida, housing, hurricanes, jobs, lawsuit, money, Obama, property, raise, raises, stimulus, Stuart, Traffic

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:48 am and is filed under Economy, Palm City, Stuart, Traffic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.