Key Point: “The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, also known as the bipartisan infrastructure law, is already a defining aspect of Biden’s presidency.”

Business Insider: The economic projects that could reshape Biden’s legacy

By John L. Dorman 

• The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, also known as the bipartisan infrastructure law, is already a defining aspect of Biden’s presidency. And the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to once again make the US a leader in semiconductor manufacturing, could also change some minds on Biden’s overall economic record.

• In September 2024, the Federal Railroad Administration signed an agreement that’ll direct $3 billion to the Nevada Department of Transportation for Brightline West. The signing came after a December 2023 announcement that the project would be awarded funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law.

• The Airport Infrastructure Grants (AIG) program is part of the $25 billion allocated for airport and air traffic control improvements within the infrastructure law.

• As part of the program, $20.1 million was awarded to the Atlanta airport in August 2024 to improve its taxiways and taxi lanes, while $49.6 million was granted to the Ellison Onizuka Kona airport to rehabilitate its Runway 17-35 that same month.
  
• The John A. Blatnik Bridge serves as a vital transportation link between Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. The bridge opened for traffic in 1961 and is in dire need of repairs. Biden visited Superior in January 2024 to announce that $1.06 billion will be allocated to replace the aging bridge.

• “For decades, people talked about replacing this bridge, but it never got done, until today,” Biden said during his visit to the Midwestern locale.

• “Under the Trump administration, ‘infrastructure week’ was just a punchline, but President Biden turned it into a historic legacy of investing in America and American workers in states across the country,” Democratic National Committee deputy communications director Abhi Rahman told Business Insider in a statement.

• And in November 2024, his administration finalized $6.6 billion in funding for the Arizona subsidiary of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The award will fund the construction of three factories in Phoenix.

• Biden in November said the projects would create thousands of jobs, calling it the “largest foreign direct investment in a greenfield project in the history of the United States.”

• The Georgia-based bus manufacturer Blue Bird in July 2024 was awarded $80 million from the US Department of Energy to bolster its production of electric school buses.

• Blue Bird received the funding as part of the Biden administration’s $1.7 billion investment to transform shuttered or at-risk auto manufacturing plants into facilities that can produce electric and hybrid vehicles. The dedicated funding was part of the Biden-backed Inflation Reduction Act, which the president signed into law in 2022.