Thanx again BeauBo.
I’ve been out of thouch lately, missed your reports of the progress on the wall.
How far along are we now??
415 miles completed.
The last two weekly reports had slower weekly rates - 7 and 6 miles (although Thanksgiving is in there).
Now that more than half of the 718 miles funded are finished (56%), we may have already crested our peak rate of construction (unless President Trump can pull a second term out of the hat, and add more money).
We could still be on track to complete the goal of 450 by year’s end.
I am not sure if you noticed, but a few weeks back, some more moved from pre-construction into under construction. Only 87 miles worth of segments have not yet broken ground.
Should a Biden Administration take office, there is a possibility that some segments underway, might continue to completion, depending on their status, the nature of their funding (direct appropriations, DOD Counter-narcotics, or diverted from Military Construction in the emergency declaration), and if all the land has been acquired for the right of way..
If a Biden Administration does not blanket terminate the existing contracts, I at least expect two policy actions very early.
1. Cease all land condemnation actions, to seize private land under eminent domain. That would especially impact the directly Congressionally appropriated segments in the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo Sectors. They might be cancelled, or end up with lots of gaps.
2. Cancel the declared state of emergency. That would mean at least that any of the Military Construction money not already on contract, would not be put onto any new contract. Existing contracts using that MILCON money would be among those at highest risk of termination, if the process is selective, rather than blanket.