On Saturday morning, the House of Representatives passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), a 10-year, $1.2 trillion packages of traditional infrastructure with $550 billion in new funding. The Senate passed the bill last summer and it now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature. Public reports indicate that President Biden will sign the bill on Monday. The League, along with our partners at the National League of Cities (NLC) strongly advocated for this measure and wish to thank the entire New Jersey congressional delegation for their support for the IIJA.
This IIJA Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will rebuild America’s roads, bridges, and rails, expand access to clean drinking water, ensure access to high-speed internet, and tackle the climate crisis. This legislation will:
- Delivers clean water and eliminates lead service lines by investing $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water nationwide for households, businesses, schools, and child care centers.
- Ensures every American has access to reliable high-speed internet by investing $65 billion.
- Repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, and safety for all users by reauthorizing surface transportation programs for five years and investing $110 billion in additional funding to repair our roads and bridges and support major, transformational projects.
- The legislation includes the first-ever Safe Streets and Roads for All program to support projects to reduce traffic fatalities.
- Improves transportation options for millions of Americans through the largest investment in public transit in U.S. history. The legislation includes $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit, in addition to continuing the existing transit programs for five years as part of surface transportation reauthorization. In total, the new investments and reauthorization in the IIJA provides $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years and expands nationwide public transit options, replace thousands of deficient transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero-emission vehicles, and improve accessibility.
- Upgrades our nation’s airports and ports by investing $17 billion in port infrastructure and waterways and $25 billion in airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon technologies.
- Makes the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak. The legislation invests $66 billion in additional rail funding to eliminate the Amtrak maintenance backlog, modernize the Northeast Corridor, and bring rail service to areas outside the northeast and mid-Atlantic. This is the largest investment in passenger rail since Amtrak’s creation, 50 years ago, and will create safe, efficient, and climate-friendly alternatives for moving people and freight.
- Builds a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers by investing $7.5 billion.
- Upgrades our power infrastructure to deliver clean, reliable energy across the country and deploys cutting-edge energy technology to achieve a zero-emissions future. The IIJA includes more than a $65 billion investment in clean energy transmission and grid.
- Makes infrastructure resilient against the impacts of climate change, cyber-attacks, and extreme weather events with an investment of over $50 billion to protect against droughts, heat, floods and wildfires, in addition to a major investment in weatherization.
- Delivers the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution by investing $21 billion to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaiming abandoned mines, and capping orphaned oil and gas wells.
Included in the IIJA is funding for the Gateway Project. New Jersey is expected to receive an estimated $12 billion over the next decade Included in the total amount are:
- $1.1 billion for bridges,
- $272 million for airports,
- $4.1 billion for public transit,
- $6.8 billion highways and roads,
- $100 million for broadband,
- $15m wildfire prevention,
- $1 billion for clean water,
- $17 million for cyber protection,
- $104 million electric vehicle charging stations
Contact: Paul Penna, Legislative Analyst, ppenna@njlm.org or 609-695-3481, x110.