Future of the I-5 Bridge project depends on billions in federal grants, now uncertain under Trump

The bridge connecting Oregon and Washington on Interstate 5 has needed replacement for decades. Experts say it would not withstand earthquakes of the size that the Northwest is certain to experience in coming years. Hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars went under the metaphorical bridge when the Columbia River Crossing project fell apart more than a decade ago. Now the I-5 replacement plan that Oregon, Washington and other public agencies have created depends on funding from both states, future tolling, and the federal government coming through with money it pledged to the project long before President Trump began his second term. Erik Neumann is OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief and has been following developments closely. He joins to share the details on where replacement stands and remind us what’s at stake.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Geoff Norcross: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Geoff Norcross, in for Dave Miller. The I-5 Bridge that connects Oregon and Washington is over 100 years old and needs to be replaced. Everybody agrees on that. The disagreements start when you bring in questions like what it will look like and most crucially, how it will be paid for. The current plan relies on state and federal funding, neither of which is a sure thing right now.

Erik Neumann is OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief. He’s been following the long-running effort to replace that bridge, and he joins us now. Eric, good to have you. Thanks for doing this.

Erik Neumann: Thanks.

Norcross: We’ll talk about federal funding first, which is a big thing, but let’s talk about the state part. The estimated cost for the bridge is $7.5 billion. How much of that would be footed by Oregon and Washington?

Neumann: That’s kind of the high end of the estimate. The estimate ranges from $5 billion to $7.5 billion. Washington and Oregon would each contribute $1 billion to that. So that’s one piece of what’s described as this three-legged funding stool.

Norcross: The other two are federal funds. What’s the third?

Neumann: Tolls.

Norcross: OK, well it’s funny you mention that because we tried to replace this bridge before. The Columbia River Crossing project was killed in 2014. And there were a lot of conversations about tolling, and that’s one of the factors it seems that killed the project. Where do things stand on tolls now?

Neumann: I think it’s seen as a critical piece of funding for this big project, especially to collect funds over the long-term to pay for it and to pay for its maintenance. There seems to be pretty broad support, at least at the federal level, for the bridge and for tolling. So senators in Washington, like Murray, Cantwell and Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez are all big champions of replacing the bridge. The Washington and Oregon Departments of Transportation are the ones that really decide on how much the tolls are going to cost. They seem to be moving ahead with the overall project.

I think when you go down to a legislative level, it becomes a more partisan issue. There’s one representative in Southwest Washington, John Lee. In the legislative session in Washington that just started, the first bill that he filed was to prohibit tolls on the I-5 Bridge. So there’s definitely some criticism at the local level. However, it generally seems like it breaks down at Democratic and Republican support for it. And there’s definitely a supermajority of Democrats in Washington state.

So tolls are seen as this critical piece of funding the project, like I said, this third leg of the stool. The actual numbers have not been finalized yet, but the range is $1.50 to $3.55 per crossing, so still working on figuring out exactly what it’ll be. Over the long term, the estimates are that tolls will bring in over a billion dollars.

Norcross: OK, then there’s the federal money. What has the Biden administration pledged for this project so far?

Neumann: So far, the feds have allocated a little more than $2 billion for it. So there was a $600 million grant that came in in December of 2023, under the Biden administration. There was a $1.5 billion dollar grant that came in in July 2024, also from the Biden administration. And it is worth noting that those are grants.

Norcross: Those are grants. They are in hand.

Neumann: They’re not in hand. They’ve been allocated, at the federal level. But as the mayor of Vancouver has told me, they’re not sitting in a bank account somewhere. They’ve just been pledged for this project.

Norcross: And is the Trump administration obliged to provide that money?

Neumann: So that’s the open question of the day. It relates to the unpredictability of the administration right now. So these are pending grants they’ve been awarded, but that money has not been spent. Before that happens, the Bridge project has to have an actual design, and it has to pass an environmental review. Those are the two steps, as I understand it, before there’s a green light given to work on it.

Earlier in the month, I spoke to Peter DeFazio. He’s a former Oregon Representative. He was the chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. So he was quite involved in working on the bridge and he talked about how administrations in the past have really honored projects that have transitioned from one presidential administration to the next. But Trump’s habit of ignoring these norms is really coming into focus right now and is calling this question in the process about whether these massive grants are going to be honored.

Norcross: Well, let’s be specific. Just today, we learned the Trump administration has ordered a pause on all federal grants, loans and other financial assistance. How disruptive could that be to this bridge replacement effort?

Neumann: Yes, trying to figure that out. So last night the Trump budget office ordered the freezing of all federal grants. It was this sweeping order that could affect trillions of dollars, but it was put out in a two-page memo from the Office of Management and Budget. So there was not a ton of clarity in terms of what it actually means. It essentially said that federal agencies need to review the programs, review the funding and see if the funding conflicts with the many executive orders that Trump issued when he came into office.

After doing that analysis, the suggestion is that they should pause grants related to activities like foreign aid, or diversity, equity and inclusion, or the green new deal. So it’s hard to tell if the construction of a bridge on the highway is going to fit into those criticisms and those priorities.

I reached out to Senator Murray, Cantwell and Representative Glusenkamp Perez, as well as the folks from the interstate bridge replacement. I’m still waiting to hear back on any details. I think people just don’t really know where things stand right now. When I talked to Peter DeFazio, he said that rescinding money for this project theoretically could happen, but it would require an act of Congress. He also said that that would be difficult given that there’s broad support from the four senators in Washington and Oregon for this bridge.

One takeaway is that this bridge needs to be replaced. It’s not going to withstand a major earthquake. It creates really bad congestion. So this delay would, essentially, just increase costs. And that’s something that Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle said. This is her describing that situation.

Anne McEnerny-Ogle [recording]: When you look at the costs that are expected when the construction actually starts, you’re delaying buying the metal, the steel, everything that goes along with it. You’re adding $1 million per day when you delay this project.

Norcross: I think the point of that is, Erik, the Trump administration has a lot of power here. But we do have a record of what the administration wants to do. I want to play an excerpt from the recent confirmation hearing for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Washington’s Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell asked if he would commit to continuing funding for current projects like the Interstate Bridge, and this was part of that conversation.

Maria Cantwell [recording]: I mentioned the I-5 Bridge when we spoke – the infrastructure investment that’s already been planned, the money has been out the door and it’s on its way to doing the work. Will you commit to helping complete these projects and continue the funding?

Sean Duffy [recording]: That are underway … yeah. Yes, and again, one of the complaints I’ve heard from the Committee is oftentimes the money is not moving fast enough. There’s been questions about why it’s taking so long. So yes, I’d love to work with you and make sure that the money gets out the door to the projects that are underway.

Norcross: Erik, how reassuring is that for champions of the bridge?

Neumann: Well, it was definitely reassuring for Senator Cantwell. After Duffy’s confirmation hearing, she said she was supportive of him because of quotes like that. She said that she was going to support his nomination. So yeah, it seems like that was reassuring to supporters.

Norcross: I’m a little bit behind on this. Has he been confirmed yet?

Neumann: That’s a good question. You know … I don’t know.

Norcross: We’re both a little bit behind. There’s been a lot of news.

You dug into the “Project 2025” chapter on federal transportation projects. What did you find there?

Neumann: For those who don’t know, “Project 2025” is sort of this priority document written by the Heritage Foundation for the Trump administration. So we don’t exactly know to what extent this document is going to guide actual decisions. But they’ve definitely made themselves clear on what they want in terms of this second Trump administration.

So I would say in reading the section on transportation, it was a mixed bag in terms of support or not for this kind of a project. There was a lot of criticism of what it described as “discretionary grant funding,” things that were sort of outside of the typical ideas of what transportation is.

One example that I can think of with the bridge project is, just recently the city of Vancouver got a $30 million grant to put a lid over I-5, essentially building a crossing between downtown and Fort Vancouver, which would have things like green space and walkways, and be a public transit hub. So you could read that as being a little bit outside of the conventional bounds of transportation.

There’s also a fair amount of criticism in this document about public transit in general. But there’s also things that you could see as being really supportive of replacing a critical bridge along the West Coast. It talked about going back to basics with transportation, and how the Federal Highway Administration should ensure quality and safety of highways and bridges. Seems like that would be supportive of a bridge.

Norcross: Sure. And just to be [up to date], Sean Duffy was in fact confirmed as the Transportation Secretary. So we’re gonna tie that up.

Let’s talk about light rail. That was a big sticking point in the last project, 11 years ago. How are people feeling about light rail being included in this project now?

Neumann: It’s still a controversial topic. Light rail is still a target of local critics. The city of Camas is in the process of writing a resolution to talk about how light rail should not be included in the bridge design, if I’m remembering that correctly. So there’s miscellaneous criticism over the inclusion of light rail. The only thing that I’ve really seen at a higher level is this mentioned in “Project 2025.” So it’s hard to say exactly how big of a wedge that could be.

Norcross: We’ve been hearing a lot about tariffs and that could have an effect on the materials that actually go into building the bridge because they come from lots of different countries. What potential effects are you hearing about?

Neumann: Yeah, tariffs are another potential impact. The Trump administration has floated the idea of 35% to 60% tariffs on Chinese goods. That’s important because the vast majority of the world’s raw steel comes from China. And there would be a lot of steel that would be needed for any of these designs for this bridge. So, hard to really tell the ultimate impact of that. I went back to the first Trump administration. There was a 25% tariff that was put on Chinese steel at that point. And there have been some assessments of the actual impact of that – 25% tariff did not necessarily relate to a 25% increase in cost. It was more like an overall 2.4% increase in costs. So, smaller, but it gets back to that point that the mayor had. These things could just increase the price tag.

Norcross: Well, despite all of these issues that we’ve been talking about, the Vancouver mayor, Anne McEnerny-Ogle, who we heard from earlier, says she’s still hoping to get a shovel in the dirt on September 9 – which is remarkably specific. How did she come up with that date?

Neumann: That relates to this “record of decision” that they’re hoping to get. That would be the federal approval of the environmental impact statement for the Interstate Bridge replacement that kind of is in the works right now. So that would be a big milestone for the Bridge. It would be sort of a green light to get started.

The timeline for this whole project is that there’s going to be, what they’re calling, pre-construction in 2026. In the story I just wrote about this, I referenced 2027, which is really what they’re saying is the in-water-construction date, when they’re actually working on the bridge in the river. That will be very visible to people. So it’s a very long timeline, but that September 8 date will be a symbolic moment for the mayor and all the different partners who are working on this big project.

Norcross: Erik, thanks so much for the update.

Neumann: Thank you.

Norcross: Erik Neumann is OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief.

Contact “Think Out Loud®”

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.