Federal Funding for Ports

On November 15, President Biden signed into law the U.S. House of Representatives $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes over $6.5 billion exclusively for port programs and an additional $27 billion that ports would be eligible to apply for. Funding in this bill is spread over five years and will be above and beyond annual baseline appropriations. Some reports have overrepresented the amount of funding in this bill for ports by including land ports of entry. However, this bill represents a significant down payment on modernizing and upgrading port and intermodal infrastructure. The higher amounts reported give us a target to shoot for as we continue to work with Congress on reconciliation and appropriations bills. The following is a summary of the funding included in the bipartisan legislation:

Port Specific Programs – $6.575 billion

• Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Navigation Construction - $2.7 billion*
• Army Corps of Engineers Operations & Maintenance - $1.2 billion*
• Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) - $2.25 billion
• Marine Highways - $25 million
• Reduction of Truck Emissions at Ports (new) - $400 million

*AAPA Estimate

Port Eligible Programs – $27.1 billion over 5 years:

• RAISE Grants (formerly, BUILD Grants) - $12.5 billion
• Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) Grants - $3.2 billion
• Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement (CRISI) Grants - $5 billion
• National Infrastructure Project Assistance Program (new) - $5 billion
• Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) Grants (new) - $1.4 billion

The bipartisan infrastructure bill also includes Surface Transportation Reauthorization with baseline spending for INFRA at $960 million per year and the increase of the multimodal caps for the program, a long-time AAPA request.

AAPA thanks those who reached out to their Representatives to push this legislation and a big thank you to the Ports United Infrastructure Task Force for their input and help along the way.

For more information about the programs in this bill, click on the graphic below to enlarge.