Nearly $585 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be allocated toward water infrastructure repairs in the western United States, the Department of the Interior announced on April 6.
The funds will go toward 83 projects across 11 states to “improve water conveyance and storage, increase safety, improve hydro power generation, and provide water treatment.”
“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is making a historic investment to provide clean, reliable water to families, farmers, and tribes,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau said in a
statement. “As we work to address record drought and changing climate conditions throughout the West, these investments in our aging water infrastructure will conserve community water supplies and revitalize water delivery systems.”
According to the department, every major river basin and region under the Bureau of Reclamation’s purview will benefit from the funding, including projects in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington.
Projects will focus on increasing canal capacity, providing water treatment for tribal nations, replacing hydropower production equipment, and conducting maintenance on aging infrastructure.
“These projects have been identified through a rigorous process and is a testament to the Bureau of Reclamation’s commitment to deliver water to future generations,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said. “As we manage through changing climate, we must look to the safety of our projects to ensure that we can continue to provide clean, reliable water to communities, irrigators, and ecosystems across the west.”
Infrastructure Package
The
$1.2 trillion infrastructure law, passed in 2021, included $8.3 billion over a period of five years for Bureau of Reclamation projects.
On Jan. 4, President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) held a joint press conference in support of the infrastructure law,
praising the bipartisan efforts that successfully passed it.
“I believe it sends an important message to the entire country,” Biden said at the time. “We can work together. We can get things done. We can move the nation forward if we just drop a little bit of our egos and focus on what is needed in the country.”
McConnell, in agreement with Biden, said he was “proud” of his vote for the bill.
“Nationally, this was one of the big projects in the entire country to deal with the crumbling infrastructure that we’ve all been talking about for years, and so we finally stepped up together and addressed it,” the senator
said.
Republicans, however, have criticized the measure and McConnell for supporting it.
“There’s nothing to celebrate about a woke, bloated infrastructure law full of waste, labor union handouts, and green giveaways,” former United Nations Ambassador and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told
Fox News. “Republicans shouldn’t play center stage in Biden’s publicity stunt.”
Meanwhile, when the bill was passed, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) called it a “trojan horse.”
“[The bill] gives unprecedented spending power to unelected Washington bureaucrats, and it funnels billions of taxpayer dollars into renewable energy projects that will devastate our increasingly unreliable grid,” Roy said in a
statement. “Perhaps most absurdly, it will use taxpayer money to put critical race theory into practice with things like a $2.75 billion ‘digital equity program.’”
“That 13 House Republicans provided the votes needed to pass this is absurd,” he added.
In total, legislation passed under the Biden administration has provided nearly $13 million in funding for water infrastructure and drought resilience projects, including $4.6 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act.
The newly announced allocation builds upon the $240 million distributed for such projects through the infrastructure law last year.
