White House Touts Third Anniversary of IIJA, Accomplishments

For the second time in a month, we are posting a blog featuring a cake with candles. This time, we’re marking the three-year anniversary of the Infrastructure Investment and Job Act (IIJA) (Pub. L. 117-58), which is often called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The law aimed to respond to infrastructure nationwide that was under-resourced and neglected, leading to crumbling roads and bridges, aging water systems, an unreliable electric grid and inadequate high-speed internet access.

Since the enactment of IIJA in November 2021, federal agencies have provided more than $568 billion in funding to some 66,000 projects and awards in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and tribal nations. A recent White House notice addressing the law’s anniversary highlighted numerous accomplishments achieved through IIJA. These include:

• launching improvements on more than 196,000 miles of roads, as well as 11,400 bridge repair projects, to increase safety and reconnecting communities across the country;
• replacing 367,000 lead pipes, benefitting nearly 1 million people, with funding continuing to be deployed for more replacements;

• providing funding to deploy some 4,600 American-made transit buses, more than doubling their number on nationwide, and funding about 8,900 clean school buses;
• funding more than 580 port and waterway projects to strengthen supply chains, speed up the movement of goods, lower costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• deploying investments in about 400 airport terminal projects to modernize and expand terminals — over 200 of which are either under construction or complete;
• financing more than 2,400 drinking water and wastewater projects across the country, including projects through the Indian Health Service that will deliver clean water to 100,000 tribal households;
• launching more than 6,000 projects to help communities build resilience to threats (e.g., climate change and cyber-attacks);
• funding more than 400 states, tribes and territories and launching more than 100 projects to improve the resilience and reliability of America’s electric grid and deliver cheaper and cleaner electricity — representing the nation’s largest single investment in electric transmission and distribution infrastructure;
• funding about 2,400 projects for water recycling, storage, conservation, desalination and other purposes to improve drought resilience across the West;
• removing hazardous fuel material from 18 million acres of land to protect communities from wildfires;
• plugging more than 9,600 orphaned oil and gas wells to address legacy pollution;
• funding 180 programs that advance the Justice40 Initiative, which set a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal clean energy, climate and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities; and
• creating 940,000 construction jobs.

We fully support the continued work to improve U.S. infrastructure under the law, and hope individuals and communities nationwide are seeing the benefits from the projects funded through IIJA. One can hope that future administrations can work together in a bipartisan way to address other challenges that the nation faces.

Join us for our following Thompson Grants event:
Federal Grant Forum | Dec. 3-4, 2024 | New Orleans, La.