Nature-based Solutions Included in Major Senate Transportation Bill

Before departing for August recess, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously passed a transportation bill out of committee. America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019 (S. 2302) sets out a roadmap to revitalize roads, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure across the country through $287 billion in funding over five years.

The bill is the first of its kind to dedicate a full section to climate change. In a joint press release, Senator Cardin (D-MD) states, “I’m proud that we were able to find bipartisan consensus on the first-ever climate title in such a major transportation package. It sends a clear signal that the perils of a changing climate can no longer be ignored in our decisions about infrastructure.” 

This climate section covers eight broad programs, including new funding opportunities for states to build alternative fuel infrastructure, to established projects that lower highway-related emissions through the Carbon Emissions Incentives Program, and to increase infrastructure resilience to extreme weather events. 

Overall, the bill demonstrates an understanding that resilience to extreme weather events must be built into infrastructure planning, construction, and maintenance. Notably, legislators have defined and show willingness to fund nature-based solutions, referred to in the bill as “natural infrastructure,” to increase climate resilience. 

The bill defines natural infrastructure as “infrastructure that uses, restores, or emulates natural ecological processes.” The definition explains that natural infrastructure can be pre-existing earth features created through “natural physical, geologic, biological, and chemical processes,” and can also include the restoration of these natural processes or a combination of “human design, engineering, and construction to emulate or act in concert with natural processes.”  

The National Highway Performance Program section of the bill (Sec. 1105) emphasizes that natural infrastructure is part of the solution “to mitigate the impacts of sea level rise, extreme weather events, flooding, or other natural disasters” on highways and bridges. Natural infrastructure is called out specifically as a way to decrease the risk of recurring damage. 

Further, legislators make explicit that natural infrastructure projects are fundable initiatives under the Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (Sec. 1109) and the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) Grant Program (Sec. 1407). The PROTECT program will specifically support “natural infrastructure that protects and enhances surface transportation assets while improving ecosystem conditions, including culverts that ensure adequate flows in rivers and estuarine systems.” 

In a section on system resilience, the bill states that funding should support projects such as “increasing marsh health and total area adjacent to a highway right-of-way to promote additional flood storage.” This statement and others throughout the bill show that lawmakers are connecting the dots--roads and bridges will be better equipped to serve their primary function if climate resilience is a part of the planning process from day one. Further, these spaces can be provide more benefits to communities when nature-based solutions are considered critical infrastructure in need of attention and protection. 

 

 

Author: Anna McGinn