Special Briefing: Rolling Out the $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act—What’s Being Built and What’s in the Pipeline

The Volcker Alliance and the Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) held a virtual Special Briefing on October 19, 2023 analyzing the rollout of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — a critical piece of legislation to rebuild the U.S. water, road, transit, and broadband systems, grow the economy, and create good-paying jobs to enhance the durability and sustainability of the nation's infrastructure.

The panel of experts included Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR); Samantha Silverberg, White House Deputy Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator; Alison Premo Black, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, American Road & Transportation Builders Association. Leah Brooks, Professor, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy, George Washington University; Jessica Jennings, Public Administration Legislative Director, Transportation and Infrastructure, National Association of Counties; and Vikram Rai, Division Lead Strategist, Wells Fargo Municipal.

The panelists discussed progress in funding 38,000 infrastructure projects across more than 4,500 communities across the country. These projects include rebuilding the nation's most economically significant bridges and 15,000 smaller bridges, making the largest rail investment since Amtrak's creation, building out the first-ever national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, replacing the nation's lead pipes, and helping to ensure access to high-speed internet. The speakers also discussed the challenges states and localities face, including bottlenecks due to permitting requirements, environmental concerns, unfilled job openings at construction sites, and issues among counties and states in the distribution of funding.

“The IIJA, or the bipartisan infrastructure law as we call it, is a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation's infrastructure,” said White House Deputy Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Samantha Silverberg. “Infrastructure Week is no longer a punch line. We are delivering an infrastructure decade where the scope and scale of the bill is really unprecedented, but includes significant investments in roads and bridges, transit, rail ports, waterways, airports, EVs, drinking water, high-speed internet, clean energy transmission, legacy pollution, and climate resilience.”

“This is the first time we have a commitment unequivocally to be able to rebuild and renew America. It's a refreshing change and an opportunity for us,” said Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). “This is an administration that is committed not just to moving money out to door funding projects, but they are committed to the right ones, [like] a low carbon and equitable future. We've seen throughout the country the impacts of major infrastructure that was not designed and constructed with sensitivity to the communities on which they were inflicted. Dividing neighborhoods puts an undue burden on minorities and low-income [populations]. These programs are dedicated to try and put communities back together, not just to avoid future problems which they are committed to, but having them actually invest in programs that tie together communities that have been torn asunder.”

“I can tell you from a market standpoint, for the transportation sector, we're absolutely seeing that program have a very big market impact,” said Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, Alison Premo Black. “We've also seen a very positive development [from] state and local governments [that] have also stepped up to increase their own revenues. So it's not just the federal investment, but we have seen additional investments on top of that. … IIJA money is really having a market impact in terms of the actual construction work and what's coming down the pipeline. This really is a program with projects, particularly for the federal aid highway program, that is touching just about every community and county across the country.”

“Most of America's roads are in rural areas, and 70 percent of counties are rural. We experienced challenges when it comes to our small counties. And the biggest one really is our capacity,” said Legislative Director for Transportation and Infrastructure at the National Association of Counties (NACO) Jessica Jennings. “NACO is trying to mitigate these challenges and we appreciate the work of our federal partners… A great example is the Common Application process they're doing where you apply and they pick where your project best fits. That helps take a lot of burden off the county and it also reduces the administrative burden by allowing us to apply for all three programs with one application.”

The panel also discussed how far the funding will go. “Infrastructure costs more in the U.S. than it does in almost any other country in the world. …You might not be surprised that it costs more in the U.S. than it does in developing countries like China. But you might be surprised to hear that it costs the U.S. substantially more than other countries like Germany or Australia, countries that we think actually have a full suite of environmental protections in the same way that we would like to,” said Leah Brooks, Professor at the George Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. Brooks discussed her research with coauthors that shows "that in the U.S. we've seen a rise of what we call citizen voice, [due to] legislative changes, judicial changes, and changes in civil society. All of these three together, have worked to make projects more expensive … it's important that, as citizens, we're aware of that tradeoff, because other countries seem to be able to manage this trade-off in a way that we don't that leads to similar quality outcomes at a much lower cost.”

One way forward is more joint public private investment but this requires a proactive approach. “The IIJA aims to put more transportation infrastructure by public-private partnerships. It does so by doubling the amount of availability with the objective to increase P3 (public-private partnerships) funding,” said Wells Fargo Municipal Division Lead Strategist Vikram Rai. “But unfortunately, there's flexibility that the IIJA provides, [that is] of limited use if the state governments don't choose to use it … because the reality is that the complexity of P3 structures can be daunting, so state and local governments need expert guidance. So while the government needs to prioritize P3 projects, they need expert guidance, and private entities and experts need to meet to adopt a more proactive approach and collaborate with public entities if they want to drive innovation and transportation infrastructure.”