Build No Small Things

Early in his presidency, Joe Biden proposed the Build Back Better economic plan, which both the media and the White House framed as an ambitious, New Deal–style program for the twenty-first century. The bill that emerged from this plan was foiled, in the end, by the swing vote of Senator Joe Manchin, late in 2021. But many of its original objectives—investing in clean energy, climate resilience, and affordable housing—reemerged, albeit in diluted form, in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL, and the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. Those two laws, which passed in November 2021 and August 2022, respectively, provide a mixture of grants, incentives, loans, and rebates to private and public entities to support projects ranging from battery production for electric vehicles to urban bike lanes to retrofitting low-income housing to conserving public lands. Billions in funding have been, and will continue to be, disbursed under them.

Below we highlight some of the novel and effective uses to which IRA and BIL funds are being put. We look, too, at not only the direct impacts of such legislation but also the downstream effects, particularly the laws’ impacts on labor.

Location: Delta-Mendota Canal, California
Entity: San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority
Impact: Water conservation; clean energy production
Fund: Inflation Reduction Act

Farms in California’s Central Valley produce a quarter of the nation’s food. In a region with relatively low rainfall, this requires extensive irrigation. But current irrigation techniques are massively wasteful. Every year, canals in California lose an estimated 63 billion gallons of water from evaporation. One possible way to limit such losses: cover canals. An even better approach? Cover canals with solar panels, thus generating clean energy as well. The Inflation Reduction Act is providing $15 million to the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority, to explore the feasibility of using solar panels that float directly on the surface of canal water.

Location: Coconino and Navajo Counties, Arizona
Entity: The Hopi Tribe of Arizona
Impact: Water sanitation
Fund: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

Around 7,000 tribal citizens live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. In 2016, three-quarters of the reservation’s inhabitants got their water from wells with high concentrations of arsenic. Drinking water contaminated with arsenic can cause skin lesions and cancer, and it has been linked to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The Hopi Tribal Council established the Hopi Utilities Corporation, or HUC, in 2017, to manage the ongoing Hopi Arsenic Mitigation Project. In 2022, $8.72 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds went to support further upgrades to the Hopi Arsenic Mitigation Project, and the mitigation project is now complete, according to Selwyn Sekaquaptewa, general manager of the HUC. “Now that we have the original water system up and running, we’re able to supply compliant water to these communities,” he told TNR.

Location: New York, New York
Entity: Triborough Preservation Partners
Impact: Climate resilience for affordable housing
Fund: Inflation Reduction Act

The IRA’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, or GRRP, provides funds to render affordable multifamily housing more resilient and environmentally sustainable in the face of climate change. One of the largest GRRP awards yet—$20 million—was given to Triborough Preservation, a partnership between the New York City Housing Authority and private organizations that build affordable housing, including L+M Development Partners. The GRRP money will support renovations for two buildings in the East Village of Manhattan that together house 400 residents. “This award is really about making sure that the residents that live here are protected from the worst impacts of the climate crisis,” said Laura Humphrey, the senior director of energy and sustainability at L+M Development Partners.

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Entity: City of Philadelphia
Impact: Reconnecting neighborhoods
Fund: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act

The construction of interstate highways often entrenched segregation, exposed communities to pollution and hazardous traffic patterns, and inhibited pedestrian movement. The Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Program, or RCN, funded by over $4 billion from the IRA and the BIL, provides more than 100 American cities with funds to reintegrate neighborhoods divided by past highway infrastructure. The I-676 expressway, completed in the early ’90s, bisects Philadelphia’s Chinatown; the RCN provides nearly $160 million to reintegrate the neighborhood via a multiuse “highway cap”—a bridge that will provide pedestrian crossing and green space. The grant is “absolutely imperative to getting the project done,” Matt Cassidy, communications manager for Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, told TNR.

Location: Fort Madison, Iowa
Entity: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy
Impact: Wind turbine manufacturing
Fund: Inflation Reduction Act

The IRA isn’t just about new plants; it has also enabled preexisting facilities to recover from financial blows. In February 2022, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy laid off 121 employees from its plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, where the company manufactures wind turbine blades. In May of that year, the company laid off 171 more employees and shut down its Fort Madison plant. However, following the passage of the IRA in August, the company reversed these moves, hiring 250 new employees and restarting production in Fort Madison by the end of the year.

Location: Fort Valley, Georgia
Entity: Blue Bird Corporation
Impact: Electric bus manufacturing; labor organizing
Fund: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes nearly $1 billion to provide public school districts with electric buses. This investment not only stimulates manufacturing but also is providing leverage for labor. Blue Bird Corporation, in Fort Valley, Georgia, is one electric bus manufacturer affected by BIL funding from the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program. It is, moreover, a company where workers, in a state notoriously hostile to labor, successfully unionized under the United Steelworkers, obtaining in May 2024 a contract that includes guaranteed raises and a profit-sharing agreement. Because the bill can provide a better foothold for collective bargaining, “the impact on workers is actually life changing,” said Maria Somma, organizing director for United Steelworkers.

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada; Rancho Cucamonga, California
Entity: Brightline West
Impact: High-speed rail
Fund: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

One problem with the BIL is that it overinvests in electric vehicle production to the comparative neglect of large-scale public transit efforts. But the Brightline West rail line is one BIL-funded project that presents a promising exception to this tendency. Granted $3 billion from BIL, or roughly 25 percent of its construction costs, Brightline West aims to connect Las Vegas to the L.A. area with a high-speed train by 2028 and anticipates serving 11 million one-way passengers annually. The trip between Vegas and Southern California will take about two hours—half as long as it takes by car.

Location: Klamath Basin, Oregon and California
Entity: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Impact: Wildlife rehabilitation
Fund: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

The shortnose sucker and Lost River sucker are two fish species that live only in the Klamath River Basin, which spans Northern California and southern Oregon. Both species are of deep cultural significance to members of the Native American Klamath Tribes and of ecological importance to the region. And both species have, since 1988, been classified as endangered. “The tribe has an interest of not only removing the species from the Endangered Species Act,” said Mark Buettner, director of the Klamath Tribes aquatic resources department, “but someday being able to get those populations to a level where they can harvest them again.” $30 million from the BIL has been allocated to finish construction of a fish hatchery that will raise 60,000 suckers per year.

Location: Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Washington
Entity: U.S. Forest Service
Impact: Wildfire mitigation
Fund: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act

In 2022, the U.S. Forest Service announced a new, 10-year strategy to address worsening wildfires in the United States. Now, over $3 billion in BIL and IRA money is being used to support fuels-reduction and forest health efforts across high-risk landscapes in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, and elsewhere. The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington received one of the largest pools of funding—$102.6 million disbursed between 2022 and 2024.