 The federal government has appropriated a huge sum toward the new bridge planned to span the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon. When you add the $1.5 billion just given by the feds to the money already allocated by the two states and other grants, nearly $5 billion has been collected for the massive replacement endeavor. The new bridge is expected to cost up to $7.5 billion. But the project's Greg Johnson says that was an estimate from a while back. We will be performing another estimate.