MOBILE — U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville is crediting President Donald Trump for moving Alabama’s long-delayed Mobile River Bridge and Bayway Project toward construction, after the Trump administration approved a federal loan of up to $2.52 billion.
But Tuberville’s celebration leaves out a central part of the project’s financing history: He voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law that created the program responsible for a $550 million federal grant awarded to the Mobile project during the Biden administration.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Thursday that the Alabama Toll Road, Bridge and Tunnel Authority will receive the loan through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, or TIFIA, program. State transportation officials said the loan, together with recently sold revenue bonds and prior federal grants, fully finances the $3.2 billion first phase of the I-10 project.
“Ever since I got to Washington, I’ve been hearing from Alabamians about the urgent need to expand the Mobile bridge,” Tuberville said in the Transportation Department announcement. “For four years, Joe Biden sat on his hands, but thankfully, President Trump and Secretary Duffy are taking action.”
The Biden administration, however, announced in July 2024 that the Alabama Department of Transportation would receive $550 million for the I-10 Mobile River Bridge Replacement and Bayway Multimodal Project. The award came through the Federal Highway Administration’s Bridge Investment Program, which was established and funded by President Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commonly called the bipartisan infrastructure law.
Tuberville was one of 30 Senate Republicans who voted against the law in August 2021. The Senate approved the measure 69-30.
The $550 million award was one of 13 large-bridge awards announced by then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2024. The department said Alabama’s grant would improve safety, reliability and mobility along the heavily traveled corridor, as well as support freight movement on I-10.
That grant was not a Trump-era creation, despite repeated claims by Tuberville and other Alabama Republicans that the Trump administration secured the money.
Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy finalized the grant agreement in May 2025, allowing Alabama to proceed with the money. The Transportation Department described the action as finalizing an existing $550 million Bridge Investment Program grant, and said the administration had inherited thousands of previously announced but unobligated awards nationwide.
In other words, the Biden administration selected Alabama for the grant and announced the award. The Trump administration later executed the grant agreement, an important administrative step needed before the state could use the money.
The project also received a $125 million federal INFRA grant during Trump’s first term. Alabama transportation officials say the current financing package includes that grant, the $550 million Bridge Investment Program award, the new TIFIA loan and state funding.
The new federal TIFIA loan is a separate form of federal assistance from the $550 million grant. Unlike a grant, the low-interest loan must be repaid.
The Transportation Department said the loan will help finance a new six-lane, cable-stayed bridge over the Mobile River and improvements to the Bayway. The project includes rebuilding about a mile of the Bayway and restriping the full 7.5-mile Bayway from two lanes in each direction to three. It also includes interchange and traffic-flow changes in Mobile and Baldwin counties.
State officials said the work is intended to relieve recurring congestion at the George Wallace Tunnel, improve hurricane evacuation routes and provide a direct interstate route for hazardous-material shipments that cannot use the tunnel and instead must travel through Mobile streets and neighborhoods.
The TIFIA approval represents a major and legitimate milestone for the Trump administration. Alabama officials called it the final financing piece needed for the first phase of construction, and ALDOT expects to authorize full construction Oct. 1. Early work, including geotechnical studies, test piles, site preparation and purchases of long-lead materials, already is underway, according to ALDOT.
The state projects that the bridge and Phase One improvements will open in late 2031.
The financing plan depends in part on electronic tolls that will begin after the new bridge and Phase One work open to traffic. ALDOT said the proposed ALGO Pass rate for passenger vehicles will be $3 per trip, with a $60 monthly pass for unlimited crossings. The Wallace Tunnel, Bankhead Tunnel, Africatown Bridge and Causeway will remain toll-free alternatives.
But documents connected to the project’s bond sale show that tolls will rise automatically each year, a reversal from earlier assurances that the tolls would remain at their initial rates.
According to FOX10 News, tolls will increase annually for the first 10 years by either 5% or the Southern urban consumer inflation rate, whichever is higher. After 10 years, tolls will increase by either 2.5% or that inflation measure, whichever is higher. The $60 unlimited-crossing pass would remain unchanged for 10 years before being subject to increases.
ALDOT spokesman Tony Harris told FOX10 that the increases were necessary to make the financing work. He said the department had hoped to keep tolls frozen but could not do so as project costs and financing needs changed.
The current project emerged after an earlier bridge-and-Bayway proposal collapsed in 2019 amid public backlash over tolls. Mobile and Eastern Shore planning organizations revived the effort in 2021, and the current plan was developed through state, local and federal collaboration.
Tuberville is correct that the Trump administration’s loan approval, its finalization of the $550 million grant agreement and its cooperation on the current financing structure helped push the project to the construction stage.
But his claim that Biden “sat on his hands” omits the Biden administration’s $550 million award and the fact that the grant came from a law Tuberville opposed.
The record shows a project assembled across multiple administrations: a $125 million Trump-era INFRA grant in 2019; the 2021 infrastructure law that Tuberville voted against; a $550 million Biden-era grant award in 2024; a Trump-era grant agreement in 2025; and the $2.52 billion Trump-era TIFIA loan approved Thursday.
That fuller history gives the Trump administration substantial credit for the latest financing decision while undercutting Tuberville’s suggestion that the Biden administration made no meaningful contribution to the project’s progress.