By BEX Staff for AZBEX
The City of Phoenix has received almost $750M for 30 grant applications submitted for plans and projects under the federal Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act passed under the Biden Administration.
There is another approximately $400M in funding that has not been received. The future of those applications is now uncertain.
Early actions by the Trump Administration since taking office last month have focused on eliminating government spending the administration deems wasteful or unnecessary and have targeted allocations for projects focused on alternative energy and sustainability, among others.
Funding statuses have changed frequently in the last several weeks, and public officials around the country are faced with growing uncertainty about the fates of their plans.
The two funding laws included more than $500B nationwide over a five-year period for projects and programs administered by more than 15 federal agencies.
The Phoenix City Council met in a work study session Feb. 11 to discuss IIJA and IRA funding and projects.
A report from KJZZ quoted Deputy City Manager Mario Paniagua telling Council, “There are questions about the impact of many of these grants from recent orders and communications from the new federal administration. The bottom line answer to most of these questions is that we still do not have any clear certainty as we move forward.”
Projects facing uncertainty over federal funding include a $300M application for the City’s voluntary Lower Colorado River Basin Conservation and Efficiency Program. This program looks to conserve water in Lake Mead through compensated conservation and use the funds “to implement projects that increase resiliency to future Colorado River Shortage.”
According to the session materials, “These funds will be used to construct an Advanced Water Purification facility at the future North Gateway Water Reclamation Facility. Phase One of this facility will be capable of producing more than 7,500 acre-feet per year of potable water in perpetuity, providing a drought resilient water supply to a critical growth area.”
Other major projects with funding pending under IIJA and IRA include:
- “… the detailed design of a new 1.2-mile multilane roadway on 64th Street from Bell Road to Mayo Boulevard. It would also provide the funding to construct the new roadway, including a new roadway bridge across the Central Arizona Project Canal that would connect Phoenix residents south of the canal to a growing educational, medical, and commercial area north of the canal to Mayo Boulevard.” The total grant funds may not exceed $25M.
- “The Resource Innovation Campus (which is) is the City’s regional circular economy hub, with approximately 40 acres of lease-ready land for innovators with market-ready technologies and manufacturing processes that reuse or repurpose waste materials.” Total grant funds may not exceed $5M.
- Multiple smaller grants including airport infrastructure ($2.3M), support for the Arizona Department of Transportation Off-system Bridge Infrastructure Program, ($2.2M), and Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling ($15M), which includes funding for improvements at the North Gateway Materials Recovery Facility ($5M).
The KJZZ report quoted Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego as saying of the various projects and programs awaiting clarification of their grant funding, “These are essential to the future of the City of Phoenix, and they should move forward without political strings.”