Sen. Scott invested in infrastructure as gov., but voted no on recent bi-partisan bill

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — The clogged global supply chain may not be flowing freely again until next year.

That’s the message from Florida Senator Rick Scott’s meeting with local industry leaders at the Port of Palm Beach Monday afternoon.

But did the senator miss a chance to be part of the solution?

Florida’s 15 ports, which have yet to see any problems, are open to shipping from the backlogged West Coast. But at last check, no ships have actually made the trip through the Panama Canal to take advantage of the offer.

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One of the things senator Scott is working on is subsidizing the cost of going through the canal.

At the meeting, shipping, food and construction industries were all represented as part of his roundtable discussion.

Scott touted investments he made in infrastructure as governor of Florida to help keep the supply chain moving and provide well-paying jobs.

But on Capitol Hill, he was one of the no votes on the bi-partisan infrastructure plan that’s now waiting for the president’s signature.

CBS12 News reporter Andrew Lofholm asked him, “Senator, you talked about the value of the investment of the infrastructure when you were governor, this infrastructure bill that just passed that you voted no to, how do you make sense of that?”

Sen. Scott responded, “I would vote for infrastructure. That bill wasn’t infrastructure. Here’s what’s infrastructure, roads bridges seaports, alright, half that bill did that, on top of that my bills I spent $85 million on roads bridges and seaports, guess what? I also cut taxes 100 times and I paid off a 1/3rd of the state debt. They told us that bill would be paid for. Guess what? CBO said one bill a quarter trillion-dollar deficit.”

For their part, some of the panelists were happy about the infrastructure bill passing but remain concerned other economic headaches.

Inflation is at the top of that list as well as potentially losing employees should the federal vaccine requirement for large companies survive the legal challenges being brought against it.