Transportation gets all the headlines, but water, internet and the electric grid would all get a boost from the Senate’s infrastructure bill, too.
A nearly $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed the Senate Tuesday, including roughly $8 billion for Massachusetts.
Large sums are set aside for roads and bridges, public transit, airports and electric vehicle charging stations. But other infrastructure would see an influx, with $55 billion for drinking and waste water, $65 billion for expanding internet access and $65 billion for the electric grid nationwide. It is not yet clear how much of that money wil be coming to Massachusetts.
The bill’s future in the House is uncertain and it likely won’t be voted on for weeks or months.
Jennifer Pederson, the executive director of the Massachusetts Water Works Association, said she was “pleased” to see water specifically included in the bill.
“Drinking water is not as visible because the pipes under the ground, you don't think about it much unless you lose service,” Pederson said. “But certainly we do have aging infrastructure in Massachusetts and across the nation, which desperately needs investment of funds.”
The Commonwealth, she said, has some of the most stringent standards in terms of drinking water quality, which the Baker administration put in place in September 2020. Some 60 water systems in the state are still trying to come into compliance with the new regulations.
Despite the windfall, Massachusetts’ water infrastructure will still likely fall short: a 2012 report found that the state had a more than $20 billion gap in funding for maintaining drinking water and wastewater systems, which Pederson says has likely only grown since.
“With every new regulatory requirement, something else sort of falls down on the list of priorities,” Pederson said. “This infusion of funding for water infrastructure should hopefully help us begin to make some headway on that backlog of infrastructure funding needs. So we're really excited about that.”
State Sen. Eric Lesser, the Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technologies, is similarly excited to bolster internet access across the state. He said the dearth of — and importance of — internet access was demonstrated during the pandemic, when schools had to quickly change to learning from home and, as they did in one of his constituencies, Springfield, delivered laptops with hotspots to their students who lacked online access.
There are large swaths of Massachusetts, he said, that have low-quality, too-pricey or simply no broadband access.
“I think it’s often under the radar in a state like Massachusetts, because there's an assumption that in a high-tech, fast-growing. innovation-focused economy like ours, you're going to have universal and high-quality broadband access,” Lesser said. “And that's simply not the case.”
While these infrastructure projects would get a boost in the bill, transit will still account for a large part of the funds, with large chunks of the $8 billion coming to Massachusetts going toward road improvements, public transit and bridge repair. The funds open the door for projects like electrifying the regional rail system and connecting the Red and Blue lines, says former Mass. transportation secretary Jim Aloisi.
“All these things are designed to get more people back in seats, on busses and trains like commuter rail trains,” Aloisi said. “And that will help reduce congestion, reduce carbon emissions and improve access to jobs for people here in Massachusetts. So it's good news all around.
“Folks like me would always like to see more,” he added, “but this is this is the biggest bill we've seen in a long, long time. And again, the challenge now is for Massachusetts to set its priorities.”
