Mr. Landrieu oversaw infrastructure spending and championed public works projects across the country. The White House gave no explanation for his departure.
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Mitch Landrieu, a senior adviser in the Biden administration, has promoted the historic scope of the president’s infrastructure program.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Mitch Landrieu, the head of President Biden’s ambitious infrastructure program, is stepping down, the White House said in a statement on Monday.
“Mitch has always known that the real measure of success is not about scoring partisan points — it’s about building bridges, and fixing the problem at hand,” Mr. Biden said in the statement. He added, “Mitch has consistently demonstrated that when we work together, we can do big things.”
The statement gave no explanation for Mr. Landrieu’s departure, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House officials were trying to avoid staff turnover with the start of an election year, and the $1 trillion infrastructure package that Mr. Biden pushed through Congress with bipartisan support is among the key accomplishments that he hopes to sell to voters to win another term.
Mr. Landrieu, a former mayor of New Orleans and a former lieutenant governor of Louisiana, has been an indefatigable champion of public works projects across the country, coordinating the rebuilding of roads, bridges and other infrastructure. He has promoted the historic scope of the program and noted that the Biden administration was spending in Republican areas as well as Democratic areas. He traveled 119,000 miles to nearly 150 cities as part of his duties.
The White House said it had announced over 40,000 infrastructure projects across 4,500 communities in every state, territory and Washington, D.C., including the beginning of improvements on more than 135,000 miles of road, and expanded access to affordable high-speed internet for more than 22 million people. The president’s advisers describe the program as one of the most expansive in American history and repeatedly note that former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden’s successor and challenger, failed to pass such a spending package.
Yet the efforts have not accrued to Mr. Biden’s political benefit as much as his allies had hoped it would. A poll by Monmouth University last month found that 52 percent of Americans disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of transportation and energy infrastructure.
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He has covered the last five presidents and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework. More about Peter Baker
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Source: nytimes.com
