With the support of U.S. Representative Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, funds continued to be appropriated intermittently for the bridge. In 1995, the U.S. Congress passed a transportation appropriations bill that gave Nebraska and South Dakota enough money to complete the bridge. The project was attacked by television journalist Tom Brokaw, in a series titled "The Fleecing of America", as an unnecessary expenditure of federal money. However, funding survived and construction proceeded. Of the bridge's $17 million cost, about $14 million came from the federal government; the remaining $3 million was supplied by the two states.