The White House will invest $14 billion in 500 projects aimed at strengthening the U.S. supply chain and strengthening defenses against climate change. (By Arthur Friedman in Sourcing Journal 19/1/22)
The Biden-Harris administration has announced that it will invest more than $14 billion in funding from the Infrastructure Act in fiscal year 2022 for more than 500 projects in 52 states and territories to strengthen the nation’s supply chain, open economic opportunities nationwide, and strengthen the country’s defenses against climate change.
Projects include expanding capacity at some of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing ports, including the Port of Long Beach. Building on the administration’s work last year to get goods flowing from ships to shelves faster, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is committing $4 billion through the president’s bipartisan Infrastructure Act to capacity expansions that allow key ports to accommodate larger ships and further enhance America’s ability to move goods. These seafront investments will complement land-based investments in U.S. ports and throughout the chain of cargo movement, such as port infrastructure development grants announced in December.
The White House said That American ports and waterways are a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, citing the 2021 Card for America’s Infrastructure Report published by the American Society of Civil Engineers which stated that in 2018 American ports supported more than 30 million jobs and about 26% of the nation’s gross domestic product. However, decades of neglect and underinvestment have strained their capacity and jeopardized supply chains.
Leaders at the Port of Long Beach in California will invest $8 million to improve commercial shipping and allow the passage of ever larger ships to Long Beach, part of the nation’s largest port complex along with the Port of Los Angeles. The investment will support design work to expand the port’s main canal, deepen the entry channel and build an access channel and a turning basin. It is also based on the $52 million grant previously announced by the White House to support the long beach dock railway structure, as well as a multibillion-dollar loan agreement with California to modernize the state’s ports, freight and other cargo handling infrastructure.
The administration will also invest $69 million to improve navigation and expand capacity in Norfolk Harbor, Virginia, which handled 67 percent more containers in 2021 than it did 10 years ago. Work will include deepening and expanding the port’s sea channels to improve navigation and allow safer access to larger commercial and military vessels and to provide significant new economic opportunities to the region.
Recognizing the role of inland waterways in creating and maintaining jobs, alleviating congestion on land, and providing more affordable transportation capacity, the White House will provide $858 million to support the replacement of locks that keep water levels high enough to allow large merchant ships to pass through the Upper Ohio River, west of Pittsburgh. The administration will also provide more than $470 million to complete the construction of a new lock along the St. Mary River in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan, which serves as a passageway for almost all the nation’s domestically produced iron ore. These funds will build on recent investments by the Department of Transportation to improve the movement of goods along the nation’s waterways.
