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By Cecile Entleitner, Senior Associate,
Blakey & Agnew
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) just before Thanksgiving, it provides an excellent opportunity to reflect on the past year of new infrastructure investments and policies. Representing the largest infrastructure law in history, the BIL offers a casserole of programs we can be thankful for this year.
Many will attest that meticulous planning is one of the key elements to a successful Thanksgiving feast. Likewise, effective infrastructure legislation requires significant groundwork and preparation. Before the BIL was ready to be served, lawmakers spent much of 2020 and 2021 developing their “shopping lists” of provisions to be included in the legislation – with both the House and Senate introducing their own surface transportation reauthorization proposals. Comparable programs within the various proposals were mashed together, others without sufficient bipartisan support were left on the chopping block, and ultimately, the roughly $1 trillion BIL was presented as the final dish.
While plating up its first course of BIL investments, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) worked to develop guidance and procedures to implement BIL programs over the five-year life of the legislation. Crowd-pleasing staples like the freight formula program as well as the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) and Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant programs returned to the menu with funding increases and other improvements. The BIL raised the amounts available to non-highway freight projects under both the INFRA and freight formula programs, nearly tripling the funding eligibility for multimodal goods movement investments from previous years. While funding for the RAISE grant program was previously subject to the annual appropriations process, the BIL codified the program into reauthorization law for the first time, providing funding certainty through fiscal year 2026.
Other, formerly smaller, existing grant programs were elevated from the kids’ table by receiving historic funding increases under the BIL. Whereas funding for Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grants averaged approximately $350 million in recent years, the fiscal year 2022 notice of funding opportunity will award over $1.4 billion toward freight and passenger rail projects. Similarly, the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) was given an additional helping of funding through the BIL, dishing out over $703 million in 2022 – an increase from the $241 million available in 2021.
Alongside the traditional fixings, the BIL also introduced some new recipes that might very well become future favorites. To satisfy the largest of project appetites, the BIL provided $1 billion annually for the new National Infrastructure Project Assistance grants program (Mega). As the name suggests, this program aims to fund infrastructure megaprojects with a cost of at least $100 million. Offering broad eligibility for large projects, Mega is open to multimodal freight, highway, bridge, and transit projects. With so many dishes to prepare, efficiency is essential – accordingly, USDOT sought to streamline the application process by issuing a combined notice of funding opportunity for three grant programs. This Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant notice solicited applications for the Mega and INFRA programs as well as the new Rural Surface Transportation Grant program. In September, USDOT announced the first round of INFRA grant recipients under the BIL, awarding 26 grants for a total of $1.5 billion. Mega and Rural award announcements are expected within the coming months.
While certain Thanksgiving dishes are easier to prepare, others can be more complicated and may require some helping hands, particularly if the recipe
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covers a wide variety of cooking techniques and kitchen equipment. Similarly, the BIL recognized the unique nature of freight movement, which often spans across multiple modes of transportation, jurisdictional boundaries, and geographic borders. Accordingly, the legislation directed USDOT to establish a new Office of Multimodal Freight and Policy within the Office of the Secretary. The Freight Office will seek to facilitate increased coordination in the implementation of federal multimodal freight funding and programming, grant administration, and planning efforts. Serving as a sous chef to the Secretary of Transportation, an Assistant Secretary for Multimodal Freight will be appointed to oversee the Freight Office’s important work.
As demonstrated by the key grant programs with freight project eligibility mentioned above, discretionary infrastructure funding makes up a significant portion of the BIL pie. In total, USDOT will award more than $100 billion in grant funding over five years for various infrastructure needs. For the BIL’s inaugural year alone, nearly $25 billion will be distributed through competitive grants – by comparison, this total for fiscal year 2021 was roughly $5.5 billion. So far, USDOT has issued notices of funding opportunity for nearly two-thirds of its available grant funding for 2022. Remaining discretionary programs to be announced include grants for charging and fueling infrastructure, truck emissions reduction in port facilities, and resiliency improvements.
To date, approximately $185 billion of the total $1 trillion in available BIL funding over five years has been released, encompassing over 110 programs across several federal agencies. But it hasn’t all been turkey and gravy – given the vast amounts of funding at stake, as well as concerns over inflationary cost increases, both the Administration and industry stakeholders agree that infrastructure investments must be delivered quickly and efficiently to maximize available funding and resources.
To ensure hungry guests aren’t kept waiting at the dinner table, the White House in mid-October issued an “Action Plan to Accelerate Infrastructure.” The Plan outlines new initiatives and builds upon existing efforts to accelerate project planning, design, procurement, and construction. Among other actions, USDOT will launch a Project Delivery Center of Excellence to educate and support project managers at the state and local level, simplify the contracting process, and develop best practices in project development, project delivery, and cost containment. Further initiatives will seek to identify and deploy underutilized transportation construction innovations; expand training, support, and technical assistance to new funding recipients; and designate funding provided by the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act to improve environmental permitting reviews for surface transportation projects, reduce review timelines, and increase transparency.
Needless to say, the transportation industry has much to be thankful for this year. However, it should be noted that we have only been given a taste of what’s to come over the next several years of the BIL. The one-year anniversary presents a timely opportunity to take inventory, determine which menu items hit the spot, and, if necessary, tweak certain recipes for next year. So, preheat your ovens and set your timers for year two of the BIL.
Blakey & Agnew, LLC is a public affairs and
communications consulting firm based in
Washington, DC.
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