Local leaders greeted the arrival of Infrastructure Week in Washington on Monday with plenty of praise and plans for spending their share of the $1.2 trillion included in a six-month-old federal public works package.
But while local officials remain upbeat about the package, troubles with rising material costs, disrupted supply chains and workforce shortages threaten to hinder projects—at least in the near-term.
Bounded by the Bitterroot Mountains to the west and the Sapphire Mountains to the east, Montana’s Bitterroot Valley is home to renowned fly fishing streams and soaring vistas. Its forests, however, are facing the greatest wildfire risk in the entire state, with towns like Florence, Victor and Darby all in the nation’s 98th-plus percentile for risk. Yet houses continue to be built at a rapid clip, many of them in hazardous areas.
Theoretically, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion bill that funds improvements in transportation, water, energy, broadband and climate resilience projects, should be able to help.
Aging and undersized sewers, contaminated drinking water, and lead-tainted pipes imperil millions of households and communities nationally. At the same time, more severe flooding and drought conditions have exacerbated the nation’s water infrastructure deficit. Decades of inaction and underinvestment—particularly at a federal level—have multiplied these and other water infrastructure challenges, but the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) holds promise to address them via an infusion of more than $57 billion to states and localities over the next five years.
President Biden and Congress may have passed the law pouring more than $1 trillion into the nation’s infrastructure — but it’s what state governments like California do next that really matters.
State coffers are poised to get nearly $14 billion over the next five years through automatic funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act alone, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget, not including potentially billions more through grant programs still being crafted. But what the Newsom administration does next with the money remains to be determined, and could make or break the efficacy of the bill.
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.
