The Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed out of the U.S. Senate on August 10, 2021, and now awaits debate and a vote in the House of Representatives. We’ve been tracking the progress and content of this bill since it was first proposed by President Biden, with an eye towards whether the unique infrastructure needs and conditions of rural regions like the Northern Forest are adequately addressed.

Our verdict thus far is that the bill is headed in the right direction. It would authorize $1.2 trillion to improve and build out roads, bridges, public transportation, internet, water systems, and much more. Many of the pressing infrastructure issues in the Northern Forest—notably broadband and water infrastructure—have substantial resources dedicated to them. The bill invests not only in built infrastructure but in green infrastructure like forests.

There are also reasons for concern. The subsequent federal debt may result in fewer resources available to rural communities down the road. Spending of this scale requires appropriate oversight, but that must be balanced with flexibility in how these dollars are deployed and thresholds and application requirements that don’t impede the ability of rural communities to secure and use the funding. Just because funds are available doesn’t mean rural communities can access them.

Despite these considerations, if passed, this legislation would be a substantial opportunity for investment in the infrastructure Northern Forest communities need to thrive. As this and related legislation progresses, we’ll be looking at how Congress is also investing in the capacity of rural communities to secure these dollars and the ability of federal agencies to be adaptive to ongoing changing conditions across the country.

Here are some of the highlights and key issues we’ve been tracking:

Broadband

Rural needs: Many rural parts of the U.S. — including substantial areas of the Northern Forest — do not have widespread access to affordable broadband internet. If rural communities are to thrive economically into the future, it will be because they have the same broadband infrastructure as urban and suburban places. Low population densities across broad geographies mean that the private sector has little market incentive to create good broadband infrastructure.

What the bill would do: The infrastructure bill allocates $65 billion to build broadband infrastructure around the country. These funds have the potential to connect rural places in the Northern Forest to fast, reliable broadband. Notably, the bill raises the definition of “fully served” to 100 Mbps for download speed and 20 Mbps for upload speed, a substantial improvement from the current standard of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. Certain funding is set aside for “high-cost areas,” defined as unserved areas where building broadband infrastructure would cost more than usual. The bill requires internet service providers who build infrastructure using federal funds to offer low-cost options and provide “nutrition label” style facts about different plans for increased transparency.

Initial assessment: The proposed level of investment would be a major step towards addressing rural broadband needs. It will not put the issue to rest, however. The funding set aside for high-cost areas may still fall short of the need, and high-cost areas are yet to be specifically defined. The increased speed threshold is a start towards truly modern broadband connections in rural places, but may still leave out remote areas with slower speeds and less “future proof” technology than more populated areas.

Infrastructure

Rural needs: In rural areas, water, sewage, powerlines, and other public infrastructure is aging and increasingly expensive to repair or replace. Rural areas are often less competitive for federal grants due to match requirements needed to access funding.

What the bill would do: Many specific infrastructure types have special funds set aside for rural areas, such as with the Rural Surface Transportation grant program or the $1 billion set aside for rural water systems improvement. These programs will allow rural areas to address their infrastructure needs without competing with large urban areas.

Initial assessment: Similar to broadband, the investment levels for rural infrastructure programs are welcome and substantial.  Most Northern Forest communities rely on federal grants to address their infrastructure. At the same time, these are competitive programs and the simple availability of resources does not ensure that rural communities can secure them. Project development capacity, administration and match requirements remain barriers. Additionally, traditional metrics for assessing the success of infrastructure investments, like job creation, can penalize rural places as they compete for resources.  Match waivers and new metrics of success (e.g. number of jobs created per resident; anticipated economic impact per resident; carbon emissions reduction) would help these funds flow more easily to rural communities.

Green Infrastructure

Rural needs: Green infrastructure – using forests, soils, and other natural systems to provide critical services like clean water and mitigate negative impacts of natural events – can greatly contribute to the fight against the effects of climate change and is particularly relevant in rural regions.

What the bill would do: The bill provides funding for several forest resilience programs, mostly involving wildfire prevention and protection, including $500 million for Wildfire Defense Grants and $20 million for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite Program to detect early signs of wildfires. It also removes the current $30 million funding cap on the Reforestation Trust Fund. These opportunities will greatly impact the western part of the country where annual wildfires cause forest destruction.

Initial assessment: Allocating funding to forest management in an infrastructure bill is a huge step. Further forest management and green infrastructure investment can be utilized to protect drinking water sources, prevent flood damage, and facilitate carbon storage. The current plans for forest management can be used to lay the groundwork for more comprehensive, extensive programs that will fully utilize the potential of forest management practices. As these programs develop, their relevance in the Northern Forest will hinge on their ability to work in a private-lands context, which is substantially different from the western U.S.

Thermal Wood Energy and Wood Innovation

Rural needs: Substituting wood-based products for fossil-fuel intensive ones can be a win-win for rural forest economies and climate change mitigation. When used for thermal energy in modern appliances, wood fuels significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to fuel oil, propane and natural gas. These conversions also create demand for low-grade wood, a necessary byproduct of sustainable forest management. Wood can be used to construct energy-efficient homes and commercial buildings using mass timber, to create carbon-efficient diesel and fuel oil replacements, and for many other innovative, sustainable purposes.

What the bill would do: The bill would appropriate up to $12 million in additional funding to two existing federal incentive programs: the Community Wood Energy Program and the Wood Innovation Grants Program. These programs incentivize the use of wood fuels and the innovation of sustainable wood products respectively.

Initial assessment: The bill stipulates the added funds can only apply to wood that has been harvested on National Forest System lands, which substantially limits the relevance of these resources in the private-lands dominated Northern Forest region.

Remaining Gaps

The proposed bill would make considerable new resources available to Northern Forest communities for infrastructure. At the same time, funding for several key issues that was included in the initial infrastructure framework did not make it into the final Senate version of the bill:

Funding for housing remediation and creation. For many communities in the Northern Forest, a lack of middle-market housing – housing for average earners who don’t qualify for housing subsidies but who can’t afford or don’t want luxury properties – is one of, if not the most, critical issue they face. The problem has only been compounded with the dispersion of urban populations into rural areas during the pandemic and the dramatic rise in short-term rentals such as Airbnb. No funding to address these issues is included in the bill.

Rural Partnership Program. The Rural Partnership Program would have allocated $5 billion to helping rural communities build capacity and spur economic development, but was not included in the final Senate bill. Increased funding for infrastructure is only relevant if a community has the capacity to access it. Small rural towns and municipalities often lack the dedicated staff capacity of their urban counterparts to initiate projects and navigate complicated federal programs to earn grants. The Rural Partnership Program would have provided “flexible funding to meet critical needs,” recognizing that each rural community faces unique problems and possesses unique assets (Fact Sheet: The American Jobs Plan).

 

The Center has been active in providing perspective to the region’s Congressional delegation on the infrastructure needs of rural places. We’ll continue to track the progress of this legislation and welcome your perspectives and input. If you would like to share any thoughts on this legislation, please contact Libby Schwaner at lschwaner@northernforest.org.