A new National Academies initiative aims to help regions, states, and cities in the U.S. make the most of new infrastructure investments 

The bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress is poised to infuse $1.2 trillion over the next decade into a vast array of projects, from mending bridges and replacing lead water pipes to expanding broadband and deploying electric vehicle chargers nationwide.  

“It’s an opportunity that we haven’t seen in a generation or two,” said Micah Lowenthal, a senior program director in the National Academies’ Policy and Global Affairs Division.

Despite the huge injection of funding, however, there’s not enough money to do every infrastructure project that would benefit regions, states, and communities, Lowenthal said. They will need to make choices about what projects to pursue — and try to coordinate their efforts in ways that maximize the impact of their investments.

Lowenthal saw a way for the National Academies to help — by using the institution’s ability to bring together stakeholders from many sectors, along with its access to experts in science and engineering.

“The Academies are uniquely well suited to do this, drawing on the expertise in infrastructure, in various kinds of stressors on infrastructure — including climate change, other environmental factors, social change — and the fact we can convene people on neutral ground to discuss the issues.”

The new Infrastructure Investment Prioritization Initiative aims to support regions, communities, and federal grant-makers as they prioritize and coordinate new infrastructure projects that can increase resilience in the face of changing environmental conditions — and that improve equity rather than undermining it.

“How we upgrade infrastructure is as important as what we choose to upgrade,” said NAS President Marcia McNutt. “Past decisions, either through malice or disregard, cut up communities of color or disproportionately exposed them to hazards compared to other communities in our society. Improving equity in outcomes is imperative.”

McNutt offered her remarks at the first workshop held by the initiative — a pilot project to test the approach, focusing on identifying infrastructure priorities along the Gulf of Mexico. 

Building resilience along the Gulf

Among the ongoing threats facing communities and infrastructure along the Gulf of Mexico are hurricanes and oil spills. So the initiative’s three-day interactive workshop, held last November, used two detailed scenarios — one involving a Category 4 hurricane and the other an oil spill triggered by an underwater landslide — to prompt brainstorming about infrastructure improvements that could mitigate the impacts of hazards like these in the future.

On hand for the discussions were roughly 50 people from across and beyond the Gulf region — representatives from federal, state, and local governments, experts on infrastructure and emergency management, nongovernmental organizations, and professionals working in the oil and gas industries.   

The workshop resulted in a list of high-priority project ideas for further exploration, as well as a framework and criteria the region could use to prioritize projects going forward.

Patrick Sabol, who directs the infrastructure initiative for the National Academies, hopes that the workshop — and the published summary describing it — will serve as a model that other regions and communities can use.

“There are a lot of places where that kind of collaboration could unlock a lot more capital and positive long-term outcomes,” he said. The same approach could be applied to identify infrastructure improvements that could mitigate heat emergencies in the Pacific Northwest, for example, or flooding along the Mississippi River Corridor.

Coordinating projects to maximize impact

In addition to helping regions and communities identify ways to protect against specific threats, the initiative plans to support efforts to coordinate projects across infrastructure areas and funding streams.

Often, Sabol said, a transit agency might get funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation for a project, while the adjoining county uses a grant to expand a highway, all while the local water utility is working with EPA to build new stormwater infrastructure — and each of them may be unaware of the other projects and how they may impact one another. “It’s not really the federal government’s job to coordinate this, and most regions don’t have the capacity to do it,” he said.

Workshops could help fill that gap by gathering people from across a region or metropolitan area to share information about planned projects and coordinate them for maximum impact. “There are opportunities to make these additive as opposed to just a bunch of one-offs,” said Sabol. “How can we help communities make investments in ways that are greater than the sum of their parts?”

For example, suppose a community gets a grant to invest in electric buses, he said. Those buses come with giant batteries — which could also be used to supply electricity at a community resilience center where people could shelter during a natural disaster.

Integrating scientific information into planning

The initiative also aims to help regions, states, and cities incorporate scientific information about climate and other factors into their infrastructure plans.

“USGS, NOAA, and NASA have great scientific information resources about the environmental stressors on specific locations that they want used,” said Sabol. “And so one of the things we’re looking at is how to connect communities to information resources about developments in the environment.”

For example, sea level rise will make high tides even higher in some areas, which communities need to consider as they build new infrastructure, he said. “You don’t want to build new port infrastructure in a location that, in 10 or 15 years, will be underwater twice a day.”

Sabol is working with several Academies units and talking with the White House, agencies across the federal government, foundations, and regional leaders to develop the program.

“We hope the initiative can support all of these stakeholders in unlocking the power of collaboration and the rare opportunity offered by the new infrastructure law,” said Lowenthal.