WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2024 – Three years ago, on November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, making a historic investment in America’s infrastructure and competitiveness. Since being signed into law, it has been instrumental in transforming the lives and livelihoods of farmers, ranchers, small businesses and communities nationwide.
Through this landmark legislation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is bringing economic opportunity, telemedicine and distance learning to rural America, with investments in high-speed internet; protecting and making communities more resilient to wildfires by restoring forests and investing in the wildland fire workforce; and supporting innovative solutions to the many environmental, economic and social challenges faced in communities across the nation.
“For three years, USDA has been working diligently and efficiently to ensure the historic resources from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law reach communities nationwide,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America Agenda, we are protecting more communities and natural resources from wildfire, connecting rural areas to high-speed internet, and improving watershed management and flood protection, making historic investments in these efforts.”
In the three years since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) was signed into law, USDA has delivered funding to historically underfunded and backlogged programs. The funding has also allowed for the development of new programs, which listen to local voices, include underserved communities, and focus on responding directly to community needs.
Reducing Wildfire Risk and Supporting Rural America
With nearly $5.5 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, USDA is reducing wildfire risk and restoring healthy, resilient and productive forests while improving economic, environmental and recreation infrastructure. Listening to local voices, USDA has taken historic strides in fighting climate change, growing sustainable forest economies and supporting wildland firefighters. The Forest Service has:
- Treated more than 11.8 million acres to protect communities, watersheds and critical infrastructure from wildfire over the last three years thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, disaster supplemental , and regular appropriations. Treatments prioritized work across 21 high-risk landscapes as part of the 10-Year Wildfire Crisis Strategy to reduce wildfire risk where it poses the most immediate threats to communities.
- In fiscal year 2024, USDA’s Forest Service met its 4.2-million-acre hazardous fuels treatment goal. This includes an agency record high of acres treated with prescribed fire.
- Continued the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program, in partnership with states, committing over $450 million in grants since 2023 to help at-risk communities protect their homes, businesses and infrastructure from catastrophic wildfire.
- Made possible by expanded funding authority through the REPLANT Act, a provision of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Forest Service completed more than 231,000 acres of reforestation in fiscal year 2024. This work was guided by the agency’s reforestation strategy (PDF, 7 MB), which aims to address the reforestation backlog on national forests over the next 10 years.
- In coordination with the Department of the Interior, increased the pay of more than 20,000 federal wildland firefighters, established a Wildland Firefighter occupational series and developed an unprecedented $456 million funding request to Congress to permanently reform wildland firefighter pay, increase workforce capacity, and invest in workforce housing and vital health and well-being services. Urgent congressional action is required to permanently authorize and continue the pay increase.
- Funded $55 million in work to enhance visitor experiences by improving recreation infrastructure, and historic sites and cabins on national forests and grasslands.
- Funded nearly $75 million in 171 projects through the community wood, wood innovations, and wood products infrastructure grants in fiscal year 2024 to expand wood product use and strengthen wood markets that support long-term, sustainable forest management.
- Since 2021, the Forest Service has invested $189 million in 482 projects thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and regular appropriations. These federal investments have generated and leveraged over $600 million in investments from the private sector.
- Invested $66 million to improve roads, trails, and water quality through the Legacy Roads and Trails Program and the Collaborative Aquatic Restoration Program. These programs protect infrastructure and support healthy watersheds so forests can continue providing clean drinking water to millions of Americans.
- Distributed $232 million to 745 counties to fund schools, roads and other public services through the Secure Rural Schools program. The program was reauthorized through 2023 by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
- Invested $16 million to fund more than 100 projects across 37 states and two territories to combat the spread of invasive species threatening ecosystems.
Connecting Communities through High-Speed Internet
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has been helping to close the digital divide in rural America by building, improving, and acquiring the facilities and equipment needed to deliver high-speed internet through the ReConnect Program. High-speed internet connects rural communities to jobs, telemedicine and distance learning, farmers with new technologies and the real-time information they need to stay competitive, and helps small businesses develop their markets.
Since 2021, USDA has invested over $2.2 billion for 120 ReConnect projects from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to expand high-speed internet access to hundreds of thousands of people through broadband loans, grants and loan/grant combinations. Examples include:
- Public Service Telephone Company received a loan of more than $36 million to connect nearly 13,000 people, nearly 300 businesses, 261 farms and 16 educational facilities to high-speed internet in Georgia.
- Pine Belt Telephone Company, Inc. received a loan/grant combination of nearly $50 million to connect nearly 16,000 people, 608 businesses, 52 educational facilities and 407 farms to high-speed internet in Alabama, including socially vulnerable communities.
- Panhandle Telephone Cooperative, Inc. received a loan/grant combination award of more than $43 million to provide high-speed internet to nearly 1,300 people, 36 businesses, 696 farms and three educational facilities in Oklahoma and New Mexico.
- Scott County Telephone Cooperative received a $25 million grant to provide high-speed internet to socially vulnerable communities in Virginia, including more than 17,000 people, 1,018 businesses, 37 farms and 49 educational facilities.
- USDA has used $15 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to award 40 cooperative agreements that will help rural communities access federal funding for high-speed internet infrastructure across 24 states.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law projects are now under construction and even turning on across the country, connecting rural communities to high-speed internet for the first time. Since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department has invested more than $4 billion for 345 ReConnect projects that will bring high-speed internet access to more than 600,000 people in the most rural and remote areas of America.
Improving Watershed Resilience
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) with $918 million for projects focused on previously underserved communities, and include building new dams, flood prevention projects and improving watershed infrastructure. In the first two years, NRCS investments include:
- $631 million in 238 projects to restore watersheds through the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Program and rehabilitate aging dams through the Watershed Rehabilitation Program in 49 states.
- $281.5 million for Emergency Watershed Program projects in 20 states to help local communities relieve imminent threats to life and property caused natural disasters that impact watersheds.
- Nearly $39.5 million from Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), using funds provided for fiscal year 2024 in the Farm Bill or Inflation Reduction Act, to support investment in projects through the WATERSMART Initiative , which complement BIL-funded efforts by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.
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