Joe Biden is investing in America – from the middle-out and bottom-up

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a generational investment in our nation’s infrastructure. It makes the largest investment in bridges since the interstate highway system was built. It makes the largest investment in public transit in U.S. history. It makes the greatest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak. And it makes the largest investment in electric vehicle infrastructure in U.S. history.

After decades of talk about rebuilding and renewing America’s infrastructure, President Biden delivered. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a historic investment in America that is changing people’s lives for the better and getting America moving again. 

President Biden defied the critics and the doubters, and forged consensus and compromise between Democrats and Republicans in Congress to demonstrate that our government can deliver big wins for the American people. 

Specifically, through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Biden-Harris Administration will: 

• Replace all of America’s lead pipes and service lines to deliver clean drinking water.
• Ensure everyone can access reliable, high-speed internet.  
• Repair our roads and bridges. 
• Modernize and expand public transit options in every state across the country.  
• Upgrade airports and ports to strengthen supply chains.  
• Make major investments in passenger rail. 
• Build the first-ever national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers.  
• Upgrade power infrastructure and transmission lines to deliver clean, reliable energy across the country.  
• Clean up legacy pollution like Superfund and brownfield sites, abandoned mines, and orphaned oil and gas wells.  

To highlight the difference these projects can make in people’s lives, consider just one of the priorities contained in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: replacing lead pipes and service lines to deliver clean drinking water.  

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that over half of American children could be exposed to lead. Exposure to lead is hazardous to their health, and impacts children’s brain development. It can damage the brain and kidneys, interfere with the production of red blood cells that the body needs to carry oxygen, and hurt cognitive function in children. 

President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that no family should worry that water from their tap will harm, even poison, their children. They have set an ambitious goal of removing all lead pipes in the next 10 years, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has launched more than 1,400 drinking water and wastewater projects that will replace hundreds of thousands of lead service lines. In keeping with the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to working people, the projects to replace lead pipes are creating good-paying jobs for American workers. 

Trump turned infrastructure week into a punchline.. President Biden got it done, and his Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is making life better for millions of ordinary hard working American families – including those too often overlooked and left behind.

When Donald Trump was President, he and his White House staff repeatedly announced “infrastructure week” was coming – as if they were serious about moving a bipartisan infrastructure bill. They never did. Trump was so unserious about advancing policy that “infrastructure week” became a punchline — a running joke for “a policy objective destined to go nowhere.”

Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their entire administration worked tirelessly to pass a historic bipartisan infrastructure bill. And they produced the largest infrastructure investment since the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s.

In fact, back in 2021, the bipartisan infrastructure bill met with fierce resistance and was almost tanked – by none other than Donald Trump. As President Biden and his team convinced Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the bill, Trump lodged multiple attacks against them in an attempt to prevent the bipartisan infrastructure bill from becoming what they themselves admitted “a victory for the Biden administration and Democrats.”

Despite Trump’s best efforts, President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is rebuilding our roads and bridges, replacing lead pipes to provide clean water, providing high-speed internet to every family in America, delivering cheaper and cleaner energy to households and businesses, and creating good-paying jobs. For Donald Trump, “infrastructure week” became a punchline. For Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, their commitment to rebuilding America has produced an “infrastructure decade.” 

To date, the Administration has announced over $400 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding for over 50,000 infrastructure projects across the nation. Here are just some examples of infrastructure projects underway or announced:

• $10.4 billion is headed to Michigan with over 551 specific projects identified for funding – $6.8 billion to invest in roads, bridges, public transit, ports and airports; $699 million for clean water and water infrastructure; and $2.2 billion to connect everyone in the state to reliable high-speed internet, with more than 941,000 Michigan households already saving on their monthly internet bill. 
• $11.1 billion to Pennsylvania to invest in roads, bridges, public transit, ports and airports; roughly $859 million for clean water and water infrastructure;  and$1.6 billion to connect everyone in the state to reliable high speed internet. 
• $1.06 billion to replace the Blatnik Bridge connecting Wisconsin and Minnesota: Predicted to finish by 2030, this new investment will expand weight capacity to accommodate freight, build wider shoulders to improve safety, and increase accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.
• $95 million for the Gila River Indian Community I-10 Project in Arizona. The project will widen approximately 10 miles of I-10 in Pinal County from two lanes to three lanes, make interchange improvements and build a new interchange, and remove or replace low-clearance bridges along the route. The project will improve safety, increase capacity, and provide job opportunities for the Gila River Indian Community.
• $198 million to extend the Phoenix Northwest Light Rail which will serve about 2 million passengers per year.
• $28 million for the Elko Nevada Rail Corridor Enhancement project in Nevada. The project will make improvements on the Union Pacific Railroad at the Elko Yard. Track improvements, infrastructure upgrades, and enhanced signal infrastructure will reduce an average of 2.5 hours of delay per freight train using the corridor. 
• $15 million for the East River Terminal Berth Replacement project in Georgia. The project will replace three berths at the Port of Brunswick’s East River Terminal, as well as support growing export of wood pellets at the port.
• $7.5 billion to build the first-ever national network of electric vehicle chargers in the United States, a critical element of President Biden’s plan to address the climate crisis and support domestic manufacturing jobs.
• $24 billion for Amtrak modernization: $16.4 billion to modernize and $8.2 billion for world-class rail, including the country’s first high speed rail projects.
• $1.6 billion to upgrade and build a new Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio. The bridge  carries Interstates 71 and 75 across the Ohio River between Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. 
• $600 million to replace the over 100-year-old I-5 Bridge – a critical connection linking Oregon and Washington across the Columbia River as part of a vital regional, national and international trade route.
• $66 million for the Mineral County I-90 Improvement Project in Montana. The project will reconstruct almost six miles of I-90, making resilience, drainage, and safety improvements, and replace three bridges on westbound I-90. 
• $150 million to reconnect communities divided by the Cross Bronx Expressway between the Harlem River and the Hutchinson River Parkway in New York – one of the most congested stretches of interstate in the U.S. with some of the highest rates of traffic and collisions. 
• $11 billion to replace the Hudson River Tunnel between New York and New Jersey, which serves 200,000 passengers daily and is a source of frequent delays. 

• $427 million for the Humboldt Offshore Wind project in California. The project will establish the first offshore wind terminal on the Pacific Coast. The terminal will support the transport, assembly, launch, and maintenance of floating offshore wind turbines. 
• $300 million for the Louisiana International Terminal Project to construct a new container terminal on the Gulf Coast for the Port of New Orleans. The new terminal will be a new alternative for larger vessels compared to inland terminals that have height restrictions.
• $200 million for the Hood River White Salmon Bridge in Oregon and Washington. The project will replace the bridge between Hood River, OR, and White Salmon, WA, which serves as a critical link for freight and provides hospital access and a wildfire evacuation route. 

For more information about projects in your state, please see the state-by-state fact sheets about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law here.

According to the Department of Transportation, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is estimated to support more than 700,000 new jobs a year. These new jobs include 175,000 manufacturing jobs, 175,000 construction jobs, and 100,000 transportation jobs.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a key component of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. He helped pass and signed into law historic legislation such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the American Rescue Plan. 

The economic success of investing in middle class families speaks for itself. Wages are rising. A record 15 million jobs have been created in three years, including 800,000 manufacturing jobs. The unemployment rate in America has remained below 4% for more than two years – a record not achieved in 50 years.

President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 to restore America’s leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. The law will help ensure America’s consumers, businesses, and military maintain reliable access to the chips that underpin nearly every segment of our economy.

Semiconductors – tiny chips smaller than the tip of your finger – power everything from smartphones to cars to satellites and weapons systems. America invented these chips, but over time, our country went from producing nearly 40% of the world’s capacity to just over 10% – and none of the most advanced chips. During the pandemic, this made our nation vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions and semiconductor shortages. 

The CHIPS and Science Act dedicates $53 billion in investments in America’s semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, and workforce. In turn, this will build a robust, resilient American supply chain of semiconductors that power everything from home goods to electric vehicles to satellites. Already, as a result of President Biden’s policies and actions in partnership with the private sector, supply chain stress has fallen from near record highs to record lows, and inflation has closely followed.

Fueled by the Biden-Harris Administration’s investments, companies have invested more than $866 billion in leading industries like semiconductors, electric vehicles, clean energy manufacturing, biomanufacturing, and more. Under President Biden, America is building science and innovation hubs around the country – and not just in the handful of metro areas where innovation-led growth has been concentrated for many years – helping to create tens of thousands of jobs. Jobs that pay $100,000 a year or more, many that don’t require a college degree, and many in communities that have been left behind. 

Trump has questioned investments in chip technology, and he proposed drastic budget cuts to science and innovation while he was President. Trump has also indicated his opposition to key parts of the CHIPS and Science Act, saying, “why are we fueling this industry by doing so much?” Trump repeatedly pushed for budget cuts across the federal agencies that invest in biomedical, energy, engineering, and other forms of research and development that can create jobs and opportunities for people across the country. By the last year of Trump’s presidency, federal investment in research and development had fallen below 1 percent of economic output.  President Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act changed that.

Instead of taking much-needed steps to grow the industries of the future, Trump cut taxes for large corporations and the wealthy without any conditions that they invest in their workforce or innovation. Corporations bought back a record $800 billion of their own shares in the first year after Trump’s corporate tax cuts passed, with technology companies leading the way, enriching executives and shareholders at the expense of investments in our nation’s future.