What the infrastructure bill actually does: From NYC’s subway to California’s wildfires

The bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by President Joe Biden on Monday provides just over $1 trillion for a wide variety of local projects around the country.

The historic legislation passed Congress last week after the White House pushed for its passage first while the House and Senate await a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score on the larger Build Back Better Act, which focuses on so-called “human infrastructure” such as Medicare, Medicaid, childcare and more.

Much of the smaller bill’s $1.2 trillion price tag accounts for existing projects; the bill’s funding for new infrastructure initiatives totals $550bn.

That new spending in the bill will be doled out for some federal initiatives as well, but the majority of the funding will be in the hands of state and local officials for specific projects in their jurisdictions.

Along with funds to repair roads and bridges in every state, there are a few notable examples of how the bill is being used by state leaders to rebuild and improve everything from airports to water systems:

New York City’s subway system The Governor of New York, whose administration oversees the state transit authority including the New York City subway system, says that her state will use some money allocated in the bill to prevent fare increases or service cuts for riders over the next year.

Gov Kathy Hochul characterised the plan as aiming to make the commute to work on the subway one less thing for New Yorkers to worry about as they deal with issues like inflation.

“[T]hose of you who are commuters on the MTA and have been anxious about how much this is going to go up, especially in this era of inflation, when it just seems when you’re just trying to get your head above water and come out from under a long dark period of the pandemic, and you might get a little bit more money in your paycheck, that the cost of living from gasoline to the cost of turkeys in another week and a half, this is really affecting people’s ability to just put food on their table,” she said at a press conference on Monday.

New York City isn’t the only part of the state receiving money for major transit projects. In upstate Albany, city officials are getting millions to retrofit their airport terminals and “modernise” the runways, according to Ms Hochul.

Great Lakes restoration The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater lakes on Earth, and affect the lives of millions across Michigan and other states stretching from Minnesota to New York.

Monday’s passage of the bipartisan bill means $1bn of federal dollars flowing into projects to restore the lakes, which face issues of contamination from agricultural runoff, microplastics, and invasive species.

An algae bloom shut down the tap water systems in Toledo, Ohio in 2014 for nearly three days; such blooms occur annually, but are exacerbated by runoff.

Texas energy system resilience The need to weatherise Texas’s energy grid was made all too clear earlier this year when millions across the state lost power and heat for days during brutal winter storms that left more than 200 dead.

Out of $1.2 trillion in the bill, around $3.5bn is allocated for weatherising energy grids across the country. It isn’t certain exactly how much will go to Texas just yet, but it would be surprising if a significant portion was not sent to the state, which operates its own grid independent of the two major interconnections on either coast.

Maryland waterway investments The state of Maryland will receive two major state-specific benefits from the bipartisan infrastructure bill in addition to a host of grants for bridge, roadway, broadband and other projects.

Local leaders in Maryland won more than $430m for efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay, a vital part of Maryland and Virginia’s environment that also serves as a significant driver of the states’ economies. One of the most productive fisheries in the country, it faces threats of so-called “dead zones” resulting from agricultural as well as urban and suburban runoff.

The state also will see millions, if not more, allocated for improvements to the Port of Baltimore, which the president visited just last week on a campaign to encourage passage of the bill. Baltimore is the largest e-commerce port and one of the busiest in the US.

Cleaning out the mines and wells in Colorado and Pennsylvania The bill allocates about $15bn for projects centred around abandoned mines and oil/natural gas wells around the US, many of which have been abandoned by now-shuttered companies that could not or chose not to clean them up before going out of business.

Colorado has more than 23,000 abandoned mines in the state, according to one of the state’s US senators, John Hickenlooper.

Both Colorado and Pennsylvania have thousands of miles of streams contaminated by abandoned energy and mining projects which state officials are hoping can be revitalised with money passed under the bipartisan plan.

California firefighting efforts California’s wildfires are an annual phenomenon that in recent years have led to thousands of people being driven from their homes and dozens killed.

A wide range of firefighting funding is included in the bipartisan package: millions are allocated for computers to predict wildfires, satellites to spot them as they erupt, and payment for firefighters across the state, including hundreds who will be moved from part-time to full-time positions.

Gov Gavin Newsom has announced that the state will also use about $2bn for the purchase of new helicopters and other equipment for fighting wildfires.

These are only a handful of the hundreds of projects already announced in states across the country that will receive funding under the $1.2 trillion package; many state governments have already compiled and released lists of road, bridge and waterway projects that will receive funds.

It remains to be seen whether or not a majority of the projects will end up in districts controlled by lawmakers who supported the legislation; some projects were specifically included in the bill as pet issues raised by individual members of Congress.

Sen Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana who joined the bipartisan Senate negotiating group with the White House for the legislation and eventually supported its passage, suggested as much in comments to a local news outlet this week.

Mr Cassidy told The Journal Record that many of the bill’s provisions were crafted in a way that would benefit his state, despite other Republicans on the state’s congressional delegation voting against the bill, thanks to his efforts to ensure that Louisiana would be eligible for funding under many of the grant programs.

“It helps to be in the room,” he told reporters.