Shades of DeWitt Clinton as Senator Unveils a $17B Rebuilding Plan

ROCHESTER, N.H. — Senator Clinton, styling herself as a modern-day DeWitt Clinton, is making the case for her $17 billion plan to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, seaports, and railways by invoking recent problems with New York’s electricity, water, and rail systems.Mrs. Clinton unveiled her “Rebuild America Plan” before an audience in this aging industrial city, which is rapidly becoming a bedroom community for workers who commute south to Portsmouth and Boston. The plans calls for such expenditures as $10 billion for an “emergency repair fund,” $1.5 billion annually for public transit, $5 billion over five years for passenger railways, $250 million in “emergency assessment grants” targeted at helping states inspect their infrastructures, $200 million for congestion reduction, and $50 million to encourage telecommuting, among other proposals.The plan’s unveiling follows last week’s bridge collapse in Minneapolis.The junior senator from New York pointed to numerous examples of the Empire State’s aging infrastructure as evidence of the need for her ambitious spending plan. She spoke of New York City’s water supply to emphasize the need for national improvements in this area, and referred to last year’s Queens blackout as highlighting the necessity of revamping America’s electrical grid. She also mentioned “a rash” of railway accidents in New York.“We get water from aging water pipes. Some of the pipes in New York are over 100 years old, and because of the leaks that inevitably come from erosion and other problems, they waste a billion or more gallons of water each month,” Mrs. Clinton said. “They potentially expose our water — and I must say New York City is consistently ranked as among the very best in public water — so New York City does a great job. But any water system that’s been there a long time or hasn’t been maintained has the potential of exposing us to chemicals or toxins that enter our water supply.”New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the city’s water supply, has long acknowledged the loss of between 15 million and 35 million gallons of water a day from the city’s upstate Delaware Aqueduct. Asked about the quality of the water supply, a source at the DEP said every linear foot of water main is inspected at least once every 36 months and that water is tested frequently and rigorously. Speaking of last year’s power outage in Queens, Mrs. Clinton said: “Last year in New York, we had a brownout in Queens and nobody could figure out what had happened.“It really interfered with a lot of people who lived in apartments with no operating elevator when the electricity went out,” she said, recalling her meeting with neighborhood residents affected by the blackout. “A gentleman came up to me. He said ‘I am from India, I’d never thought I’d move to the United States and see electricity disruptions.'”Mrs. Clinton also talked about rail safety. “We had a rash of railway accidents in New York that I have followed very closely,” she said. “I have worked with the state and the railroad companies to remedy it. Derailments are becoming more and more common.”Mrs. Clinton invoked a namesake, DeWitt Clinton, in making the case for large-scale infrastructure improvements. The 19th-century Clinton “persuaded the state Legislature to construct a 363-mile canal connecting New York City to the West,” she said. “They had a lot of naysayers in the early 1800s, just like we do today. … In fact, the naysayers termed the project ‘Clinton’s ditch.'”She then quoted DeWitt Clinton’s assessment of what the Erie Canal would mean: “‘The city will in force of time become the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great money operations,’ and he was right.”Mrs. Clinton’s New Hampshire supporters said they saw her speech, coming on the heels of successive debate performances where she has been deemed more serious and presidential than her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Obama of Illinois, as reinforcing the notion that she has specific solutions to problems Americans face.“She’s anticipating our questions and giving us answers,” state Rep. Doreen Howard of Newmarket, N.H., said. “Senator Obama can identify the problems but not necessarily solve them.” “Senator Obama is a dynamic speaker, but people see through that,” a Rochester city council member who is still undecided in the presidential race, Charles Grassie, said. “You’ve got to provide more substance, which is what Hillary did today.”Asked whether Mrs. Clinton’s costly plan would appeal to traditionally fiscally conservative New Hampshire voters, the chairman of the Durham Democratic Committee, Timothy Ashwell, said: “Yankees aren’t cheap, they’re frugal. They’ll pay the price if there’s value to it.”

Shades of DeWitt Clinton as Senator Unveils a $17B Rebuilding Plan

Shades of DeWitt Clinton as Senator Unveils a $17B Rebuilding Plan

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