On November 15, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) into law. The IIJA included a five-year transportation authorization for U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) programs, plus a standalone infrastructure law representing the largest-ever infusion ($643 billion over five years) of federal funding for surface transportation, including highways, roads, and bridges. The White House hailed the IIJA as “a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness,” along with making lofty promises that it would “repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users.”
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Of the $54.2 billion in National Highway Performance Program funds analyzed in this report, 42 percent of funding has been obligated to projects that expand road capacity and only 36 percent has gone to highway resurfacing projects. In the $35.6 billion analyzed from the Surface Transportation Block Grant—the most flexible formula program that allows states to fund almost any type of transportation project that advances their priorities—23 percent of funds have been spent on expanding roadways, but only 7 percent on projects to make walking and biking safer or more viable options. At the current rate, state DOTs’ usage of federal funds means we will end up falling short of meeting the $435 billion road maintenance deficit that was used to justify the IIJA’s pricetag at passage.
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Investments in emissions reducing strategies, like transit, active transportation, system efficiency, and electrification are not nearly large enough to offset increased emissions from induced driving. Based on analyzed obligations in this dataset, only 35.3 millon cumulative tonnes of CO2e emissions will be decreased compared to baseline levels through 2040. Taking the emissions producing and emissions reducing impact of IIJA project investments altogether, the IIJA will cumulatively increase emissions by a net 42.2 million metric tonnes of CO2e greenhouse gases over baseline levels through 2040.
With about half of the IIJA’s funding remaining, if states continue spending these infrastructure dollars in ways that prioritize expansion over maintenance, safety, improving access to opportunity, or providing other options for travel, there will be dire consequences for the climate.
Unless these patterns change, we extrapolate that states’ federal formula-funded investments made over the course of the IIJA could cumulatively increase emissions by nearly 190 million metric tonnes of emissions over baseline levels through 2040 from added driving. This is the emission equivalent of 500 natural gas-fired power plants or nearly 50 coal-fired power plants running for a year.