Little: Transportation Infrastructure Vital For Idaho Ag Moving Forward

The focus of all lawmakers, nationwide, since March has been on the coronavirus pandemic. But some are starting to look at life after COVID-19, and how to shuffle priorities moving forward.

Idaho Governor Brad Little said the biggest issue he wants addressed is returning certainty to schools, ensuring students don’t have gaps in their learning. After that, he wants to see several issues addressed for the Agriculture community. One of Little’s top priorities is transportation, not only removing gridlock and traffic issues in the more metropolitan areas, but also ensuring needed maintenance takes place in farm country.

“We’ve got a lot of bridges in Idaho.  [We have] a vast network of cannals with bridges that are critical.  A lot of those bridges are getting to the end of their life cycle, we’ve got to have money in there, because what we don’t want to have in agriculture is basic limitations on us getting our commodities to market.”

Little added the state will continue to invest in rural broadband infrastructure and upgrades. And he added it’s important the state continues to address water.

“Speaker Bedke and I, the Water Board all the different water users, we continue to look at some of the critical needs there.  Our recharge program has been an incredible success, but the easy, low hanging fruit is just about gone, so we’ll have some more to do later.

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