On Monday, the White House released additional guidance on implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act). Along with a release of a new landing page www.build.gov, the Administration published a guidebook for state, local, tribal, and territorial leaders that shows program-by-program technical assistance information for all programs under the law. This guidebook provides information such as timing, eligible recipients, and funding amount for each program, sorted into 13 different funding areas.
On Wednesday, the White House Infrastructure Team hosted a corresponding Webinar in which they detailed the Guidebook’s usage and answered questions from state and local leaders across the country. Of interest for RCRC was a question posed about concerns for rural communities in their ability to gather the funds and expertise to apply for programs made available under the new law. The White House Infrastructure Team responded by:
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Encouraging rural municipalities to continue to be plugged in with the White House by:
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participating in the weekly rural stakeholder group meetings; and
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communicating regularly with White House departments and agencies and utilizing said agencies’ rural resources;
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Encouraging states to work with their rural representatives and flagging the importance of states appointing a State Infrastructure Coordinator who can help aggregate rural concerns to the White House team; and
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Asserting that the White House team plans to continue working with other agencies to provide technical assistance to rural communities in the coming months.