Top 10 Innovations in the Infrastructure Act
The Infrastructure Bill (HR 3684) that passed the Senate and House with bipartisan support and is headed to the President's desk is full of things that make me excited for the future.
I thought I would pull out a 'top 10' list of changes and funding that will help contribute to more creative government and opportunities for communities to embrace new and more effective ways to do things. (This may not be the final text, but the page numbers I reference can be found in the near-final version of the bill here - 2740 pages - happy reading!)
Eradicating toxic water pipes. Few environmental problems can be completely solved - but getting toxic lead out of water can be. America is already ahead of Europe (30%+ houses with lead water pipes) in and Canada in making this problem disappear. Congress just provided $15 billion to replace a lot more pipes a lot faster. The only other thing I wish the bill included was direction to use public private partnerships and similar arrangements that could put America's plumbers to work even faster to replace these pipes, especially in small communities. Page 2569.
Digital climate solutions. Congress directed the Secretary of Energy to report back on how artificial intelligence, crowdsourcing, smart sensors and other technologies could contribute to climate solutions. This tech is a huge opportunity and is already playing a role, not just in fighting climate change, but in delivering better drinking water, helping wildlife, and protecting ecosystems. Even more action is needed to allow existing government programs to pay for technology, just as it does for brick-and-mortar infrastructure. Page 1642.
Improvements in transportation project permitting. Yeah, permitting is boring to most people, but not to me! We've got to figure out better, effective ways to incorporate community and tribal input, avoid and offset environmental impacts, and get projects built without wasting as many years in paperwork and planning. The bill includes a new interagency permitting improvement office at the Department of Transportation to develop and test and deploy improvements, including the use of digital technologies to track project reviews and improve environmental analysis. Every agency needs one of these - but DOT is a great place to start. Page 1114.
Hydropower is one part of our climate solution. The bill provides $500 million to repair hazardous dams, add or improve fish ladders, and make operational changes to existing dams that make them better able to provide complimentary energy supplies alongside those we get from wind and solar energy. Page 1574.
Halting methane and other emission from orphaned wells. The legacy pollution from fossil fuels is going to be with us for a while and that includes oil/gas wells that have been orphaned or abandoned for years or decades. The bill puts the Secretary of Interior in charge of a program to start plugging and repairing damage around the most harmful ones on public and tribal and private lands. Page 1725.
Joint Chiefs Wildfire program. Wildfires are a bigger risk to people and planet every year, both because of climate change and because we've mismanaged forests. There is now a new ~ $100 million annual program that cuts across the Forest Service and Natural Resource Conservation Service to fund programs that produce measurable outcomes of fire risk reduction, safer water supply and improved rare wildlife habitat. Page 1816.
Environmental analysis and permitting. The National Environmental Policy Act was designed with noble intent but works way less effectively than in should in allowing timely review and permitting of projects and in getting useful information to the general public. The bill makes permanent a bipartisan 'Permitting Improvement Steering Council" first signed into law during the Obama Administration and adopts a handful of other process and problem-solving improvements that will push government agencies to work better together when dealing with the permitting of major infrastructure projects. One wish? That they had written in 'major ecological restoration projects' to the list of project types to which these provisions apply. Page 2283.
Circuit riders for small water utilities. America has about 50,000 water utilities. Many are tiny - serving people living in a trailer part for example, but thousands of others have a few thousand to tens of thousands of customers. They struggle to staff and secure financing to be able to deliver the water services communities deserve today. Congress has now created a great new 'circuit rider' program to give grants to nonprofits who work with these utilities, to deal with chronic problems they haven't been able to fix on their own. Only $10 million per year, but it's a start! Page 1948.
Stormwater control technology. Precipitation falling on our roads, rooftops and fields picks up pollution and moves in downstream, damaging water we all need to thrive. New technologies like smart sensors and real-time water management digital tools create more opportunity than ever before to manage this efficiently. For example, South Bend, Indiana, is relying in part on new technologies to save $400 million compared to the previously estimated cost of treating sewer overflows. The bill funds the creation of up to five academic centers for stormwater tech, including directing them to use community benefit partnerships to advance that technology. Page 1976.
Public Private Partnership analysis. I believe that P3s and similar community benefit partnerships play a valuable role in helping government manage complicated projects and programs, often delivering either cost-efficiencies or innovation. A new analysis in the bill for big transportation projects requires an analysis of those benefits (as well as some risks and costs). The program should help make P3s even better. Page 2279.
