Fixed pipes. Better pumps, turbines and motors. New bypass channels. Repaired fish ladders. Refurbished valves.
To improve California’s water infrastructure, more than $307 million of needed upgrades like those are included in staggeringly long to-do list of new public works projects throughout the West that will receive federal funding, Biden Administration officials announced on Wednesday.
The Department of Interior is spending $1.15 billion to cap abandoned oil and gas wells across the United States.
There are over 3 million abandoned oil and gas wells in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And Interior officials say that wells have been exposing millions of people to air and water pollution for decades.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement Monday that the funding will help the country “confront the legacy pollution and long-standing environmental injustices that for too long have plagued underrepresented communities.” Much of the funding is focused on plugging wells in communities of color and in rural and tribal communities.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will visit Las Vegas to discuss the worsening drought during a five-day swing in Western states this week to highlight programs in the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, officials said Monday. The secretary will be in Las Vegas on Dec. 12, according to a Department of Interior release. Details of the trip are yet to be announced.
The new infrastructure law signed by President Biden includes almost $50 billion to protect communities against climate change, the largest such investment in United States history and a recognition that the effects of warming are outpacing America’s ability to cope.
Mr. Biden has insisted that at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate spending will reach underserved places, which tend to be low-income, rural, communities of color, or some combination of the three.
In actions that carry out President Biden’s economic agenda, the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed two pieces of significant legislation, including a $1.2 trillion bipartisan package that includes $8.3 billion for critical water projects in drought-parched California and the West.
On Friday, the House also passed the president’s social safety-net bill, the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, on a party-line vote. That bill, which funds universal pre-K, expansion of Medicare, renewable energy credits and affordable housing, now moves to the Senate.
Two Fresno area Democrats who attended the signing of President Joe Biden’s $1 billion infrastructure bill into law on Monday say the package will improve the lives of Valley residents and strengthen the local economy.
Louie Pitt Jr. has a clear memory of a day four years ago when a valve broke on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. He was in a meeting with the tribal operations officer when she was interrupted by a phone call.
Thousands of jobs in infrastructure — like clean energy and roads — could come to California and San Diego thanks to a $1 trillion package signed Monday by President Joe Biden.
The hard-fought, bipartisan package, inked into law by Biden on the White House lawn, makes major financial commitments into broadband internet, the power grid, airports and environmental cleanup efforts, among others areas. Its largest area of spending is in road and bridges where new spending over the next five years is expected to be $110 billion.
President Biden on Monday signed a historic $1-trillion bipartisan bill that he said will overhaul the nation’s infrastructure and boost the nation’s economy, which has been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Touting the legislation as a job creator, the president said it was also an example of him fulfilling a campaign promise to reach across the aisle to get things done.
The California Farm Bureau is applauding Congress for passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commending the benefits it extends to local agriculture and rural communities.
The one trillion dollar plan passed by congress late Friday night is set to fund improvement projects across the country and projected to create some 2 million jobs.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
