you just watched president biden as he revised the plan for hurricane now tropical depression ida and the devastating effects it left over the east coast. he praised the firefighters, the countless emergency crews that have helped the stranded by the devastating flood waters brought by hurricane ida. the powerful storm made landfall as a category four storm and the wrath quickly churning up the east coast bringing a storm surge and flash flooding. some of it never seen before spanning 190 mile radius from pennsylvania up to new york city. flooding like this not seen since hurricane sandy in 2012. the latest death toll stands at 17. tragically that number could rise as the water levels rise. as people are feared missing, after being swept away by those rising flood waters. the president advising those affected to lean on emergency
children and our staff are invaluable. we won t be bullied or intimidated to place a value on their lives. we ve been threatened to have our salaries taken away because we mandated masks. we ve lost two teachers in educational support professional esp within a matter of 24 hours in our school system. but today we got a little hope because there was a letter sent from the federal commissioner of education dr. miguel corodono to the secretary to the commissioner of education in florida supporting our mask mandate and expressing how they won t allow us to have our sallies taken away. they gave us permission to use our elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds to fund the salaries of school
from the federal commissioner of education, dr. miguel cardona, to the secretary of to the commissioner of education in florida, supporting our mask mandate. and expressing how they won t allow us to have our salaries taken away. they gave us permission to use what we call our elementary and secondary-school emergency relief funds to fund the salaries of school-board members and superintendents, if the governor decides to hold those funds. so we are fighting on every end. well, let me jump in here because i know look. i have been seeing you on other programs on this network. i have been seeing you all around. and and and in addition to having to do your job, right, as an educator, you are having to come on and explain to people the importance of this. you haven t even opened schools, yet. it is tragic. and i m sure that, you know, teachers and staff or you know, they re concerned.
so the surprise yesterday that they were able to reach a deal was major news. and of course the senators took a victory lap and of course the president did as well. but now i can talk a little bit about what is in the bill. this legislation will include $73 billion to rebuild the electric grid, $66 billion in passenger and freight rail, $65 billion to expand broadband internet access, $55 billion on water infrastructure, and a couple other things including $7.5 billion to create the first federal network of charging stations for electric vehicles. and this of course creates all the jobs that president biden promised that he would make during his administration. and the white house announcement was vague about how to pay for this infrastructure package. they said, quote, it would be through a combination of redirecting you been spent emergency relief funds, targeted corporate user fees and strengthening tax enforcement. but the senators took a victory
but you also have to keep in mind that we re going to go provide clean drinking water for 10 million households, 400 thousand schools. we re going to make it easier for people to get to work, make our world safer and then we re going to go and clean up brown fields and other environmental issues in communities. so, this is a humongous step towards investing in not only a safe country and a country with up to date infrastructure but also investing in communities that need that investment. how do you pay for it? you pay for it in a number of ways. first, we ll redirect some emergency relief funds that were not used and cannot be used. we re going to do it with targeted user fees. then you ll see us bump up tax enforcement on crypto currency and others to make sure that the federal government is receiving their fair share of taxes that are due. without raising taxes, just enforcing the laws that we have. and then there is an actual