Legislative Impacts On APTIM Under The New Biden-Harris Administration

As of April 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration has already signed several Executive Orders on climate, including the United States rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and stating a goal to be carbon neutral by 2035. Additionally, there are numerous aspects of the American Rescue Plan Act (now Law) and American Jobs Plan that touch multiple aspects of climate related issues. APTIM sees the impact on our business and clients in the following ways:

American Jobs Plan

• $174 billion in electric vehicles (EV), including point of sale incentives for American-made EV purchases, 500,000 EV chargers by 2030, and electrifying heavy duty vehicles and 20% of the US school bus fleet
• $85 billion to modernize public transit
• Investments in home and commercial efficiency through the Weatherization Assistance Program and expanding efficiency tax credits
• A 10-year extension of clean energy tax credits
• $100 billion in grid modernization for a resilient electric transmission system plus tax credits for high voltage transmission lines
• A federal Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard to reach 100% carbon free power by 2035
• Modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main-streets; fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the country; repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges; replace thousands of buses and rail cars, repair hundreds of stations, renew airports, and expand transit and rail into new communities
• $50 billion for infrastructure resilience, including to defend vulnerable communities from climate change impacts

The American Rescue Plan

• $35 billion in spending on wind, solar and other clean power sources while curtailing the use of a potent planet-warming chemical used in air-conditioners and refrigerators
• $350 billion to support state and local governments

1. This new funding will help State and Local governments improve local infrastructure, protect businesses from extreme weather events, improve health benefits to the community and more.

Federal Grant Programs

• The FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) has announced $500 million next year for mitigation efforts such as moving buildings out of floodplains and strengthening building codes.
• The newly created HUD Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) announced $186 million for mitigation activities in the most impacted and distressed areas resulting from a major disaster that occurred in 2018.

The laws, programs, and plans laid out above carry huge implications for both APTIM and its customers. Increased federal spending means more funding available for project implementation to benefit communities and the businesses within them. Most importantly, these proposals will allow for local job growth. However, as laid out in the American Jobs Plan as it currently stands, the administration is proposing increasing the Corporate Tax Rate to pay for the plan.

APTIM resiliency experts provide products and services to help our clients mitigate the risks, specifically by climate change, such as major storm events and flooding, sea level rise, extreme heat and fires. APTIM has longstanding relationships with many government jurisdictions, as well as deep familiarity with federal grant programs and federal agencies such as FEMA and HUD, and we look forward to helping communities capitalize on the opportunities to address climate risks put forth by the Federal Government.