With just weeks left in President Biden’s term, his administration is pushing to award grants and move funds to projects funded by his signature infrastructure and climate measures before President-elect Donald Trump takes over.
The latest example of late-term campaigning came on November 15 when Department of Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian announced the allocation of $3.4 billion in four streams of subsidies for infrastructure. The timing of the announcement was significant: it is the third anniversary of the enactment of the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act of 2021 (IIJA).
In a call on November 14 for the media to preview the grant announcement, Quillian and Buttigieg reviewed the infrastructure accomplishments of the Biden administration so far, particularly the IIJA. They said the progress includes about $570 billion in funding announced for 66,000 ongoing projects and repairs on 196,000 miles of roads and 11,400 bridges.
Buttigieg said administration officials like to refer to the program as the “big deal.”
Preparing for a new administration
But Buttigieg is clearly aware that a new team is coming. A reporter asked what steps the DOT is taking to make sure the incoming Trump administration doesn’t “undermine” Biden’s grants or policies.
Buttigieg said the DOT has been working since the early stages of the IIJA to see “the dollars go out the door … and into the hands of state and local leaders and other agencies.”
He added: “And we will continue to work to ensure that the grant agreements are completed, the dollars are committed as soon as we can responsibly do so.”
The $1.2 trillion IIJA package provides most of the funds in the new batch of grants announced. The largest component is $1.5 billion from the IIJA for 19 passenger rail infrastructure improvement projects along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the busiest stretch of its rail network.
Aid for port improvement
Also among the grant categories is $580 million from the DOT’s Maritime Administration for 31 port improvement projects in 15 states and Puerto Rico. The federal portion of the program comes primarily from the US DOT’s Port Infrastructure Development Program. The IIJA provided $2.25 billion for the program over five years.
The American Association of Port Authorities welcomed the new grants. But the group’s president and chief executive, Cary Davis, said: “Now comes the hard part.”
Davis said in a statement that the association will continue to work with federal agencies “to get the money deployed and shovels on the ground as quickly as possible so we can complete these port upgrades and realize the benefits to the supply chain and the people of our country faster.”
Grants from the program Safe Streets, low carbon initiatives
The other type of grant supported by the IIJA is $172 million awarded to 257 regional and local tribal communities for road safety planning and demonstration projects. Funding comes from the Safe Streets and Roads for All program created by IIJA. In all, the legislation provided $5 billion over five years for the program.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides the funds for the remaining grant program: $1.2 billion divided among 39 state DOTs and Puerto Rico to stimulate the development of sustainable low-carbon transportation construction materials, such as asphalt , glass, steel and concrete. The IRA includes several hundred billion in climate-related funds.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, examples of how states will use the grants include: Arizona DOT’s plans to develop a program to guide its purchase of concrete and asphalt mix; and the Massachusetts DOT’s plans to use construction materials with much lower levels of carbon emissions.
Amtrak Northeast Corridor
Within the passenger rail grant pool, the largest award announced is a maximum of $397.3 million to Amtrak to replace and upgrade the catenary power system on the railroad’s Keystone Line in Pennsylvania. The work will be done on an 18-mile stretch from the Paoli substation to the substation near the Philadelphia Zoo.
Connecticut was also a big winner in the grant round, receiving $291 million for five individual grants. Most of the funding will go to the state DOT, for things like track and catenary improvements and bridge replacement.