Jan. 29—WASHINGTON — Standing in front of an active construction site, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other local leaders on Friday celebrated the hundreds of millions of dollars that will flow to San Francisco International Airport for upgrades in the next few years.
"We are here because Democrats deliver," said Pelosi, D- San Francisco. "We delivered."
The news conference by Pelosi, San Mateo Rep. Jackie Speier and Palo Alto Rep. Anna Eshoo is one of many such events Democrats have been holding across the country to highlight the impact of the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill negotiated into law by President Biden. The lawmakers touted $250 million over years that SFO will receive automatically from the bill, and billions more that the airport could compete for from further grant programs.
"This is the gateway to the two magic worlds in our region, San Francisco ... and Silicon Valley," Eshoo said. "This needs to be a world-class airport, and that's what we're here to celebrate. You cannot even begin to dream of the completion of these projects unless you have the money. And we have delivered that and we will continue to."
The money comes on top of $484 million that SFO got from Democrats' COVID relief package last year, which was paired with tens of billions of dollars nationwide for airport workers.
It will be used to help finish the upgrades and expansion of Harvey Milk Terminal 1, as well as other needed maintenance. Speier also emphasized the importance of noise mitigation, a frequent nuisance for her Peninsula constituents.
"The money that I hope will also be spent here is for the desperate conditions that my constituents have to sleep in, and that is the noise mitigation that I hope will again be part of our efforts as we build this great facility," Speier said.
SFO has long been trying to keep up both with needed upgrades and the maintenance of existing facilities, including recent runway closures. The pandemic made those projects more difficult and caused air travel to plummet, jeopardizing and delaying plans.
At the news conference, local officials also emphasized the importance of jump-starting those projects in terms of jobs, featuring local workers and union leaders alongside the members of Congress.
"From start to finish, this airport is an economic engine, not just for business but for working-class people and the families and the communities they support," said Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building Trades Council. "They're earning a living right now because when this engine stalled, Democrats ... Nancy Pelosi, refueled that engine, kept people from losing their homes, kept them from losing their health care, kept this a global state-of-the-art airport."
The next phase of the Harvey Milk Terminal project, which was delayed by COVID but has restarted, will be a north lobby that will connect to Terminal 2. That is projected to be completed by late 2024.
Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @talkopan
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