Infrastructure Bill – What’s in it and who’s paying for it?
On August 10th, the U.S. Senate passed an infrastructure bill that included over $1 trillion in infrastructure spending. Both parties have been trying to come to a resolution on an infrastructure package since the Trump administration. However, it was only until recently that both Republicans and Democrats could agree. This blog post aims to give an overview of the type of spending in this bill, and how it may advance clean and sustainable infrastructure.
While the $1 trillion infrastructure plan that passed the Senate seems relatively high, it is approximately 50% less than the original $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan that the Biden administration proposed in the spring. Of the roughly $1.2 trillion in infrastructure spending, about half of that spending ($550 billion) is new dollars above the projected federal spending on infrastructure projects.1
The scientific community agrees that the earth is getting warmer and we are seeing more dramatic climate events because of this.1 However, the extent that humans are inducing global climate change is still being debated. Although there is still debate about how much humans contribute to global climate change, there is no doubt that we are more aware of our environmental footprint than before.