From the looks of it, the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert hasn’t done too much with the $24 million it received in federal pandemic aid.

The site where it plans to spend most of the money for a crime victims center remains an empty plot of dirt. And just one-quarter of its funds are obligated for projects, according to the most recent federal data. But town officials say contracts should be in place soon to spend the rest of it.

For Gilbert and thousands of other local governments across the U.S., the clock is ticking to use their share of $350 billion in COVID-19 relief funds approved by Congress and President Joe Biden in 2021. Governments must obligate all their for specific projects by the end of this year or else return the rest to the U.S. Treasury.

About 80 percent of all funds had been obligated as of March, according to the most recent data reported to the Treasury by more than 26,500 local, state and territorial governments. That’s right on pace to finish in time.

28 states have committed more than 80 percent of COVID aid

Federal aid from the American Rescue Plan must be obligated to specific projects by the end of 2024. Most jurisdictions that received the aid, including state, county and local governments, are on pace to meet the U.S. Treasury’s deadline.

But some governments appear to have a lot more work to do than others.

About one in five governments reported obligating less than half their funds as of this spring, according to an Associated Press analysis, and about 3,500 had obligated less than 25 percent. That includes 2,260 governments that reported no projects, leaving it unclear whether they had any plans for the money. Some of them may have already used the money but failed to describe the purpose to the federal government.

The Treasury Department said it’s doing extensive outreach to help communities understand their reporting requirements.

From the beginning, the American Rescue Plan faced criticism from some Republicans and government watchdog groups for allowing unnecessary and excessive spending, including on things hardly connected to the coronavirus pandemic. But some state and local officials say the funding has allowed them to undertake long-sought projects they couldn’t otherwise have afforded.

Gilbert officials decided to devote almost all their American Rescue Plan funds to a single project — a $43 million facility where victims of sexual assault, child abuse and domestic violence can undergo forensic exams and interviews needed for prosecution while also receiving counseling and therapy services. Officials identified a need for the center several years before the pandemic but didn’t have a funding source. The federal money will cover a little over half the cost, with the rest coming from Gilbert’s general funds.

The goal is to provide a “comprehensive wrap-around center where a victim of interpersonal violence can come and undergo a really safe and healing journey,” Assistant Town Manager Leah Rhineheimer said. It’s “one of the most meaningful projects the town could undertake.”

Town officials hope to award a construction contract this fall — a step that would satisfy the Treasury’s requirement to obligate the money by year’s end — though actual construction wouldn’t start until next year, Gilbert Police Chief Michael Soelberg said.

Under Treasury rules, an obligation generally requires a government to place an order for services or property, enter into a contract or award a grant to another entity. Governments that meet the obligation deadline then face a second deadline to finish spending the funds by the end of 2026.

Other local officials interviewed by the AP described a mixture of reasons why they hadn’t reported obligating much of their funds. Some said they didn’t think they needed to detail how the money was used because they categorized it as a replacement for local revenues lost during the pandemic’s economic downturn. Others described challenges in figuring out what to do with it.

“There’s no question that some of this money was not needed and it’s being spent wastefully,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

The Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights, which received more than $24 million, listed just one obligation on its spring Treasury report — about $79,000 for administrative expenses to select and implement projects funded with the federal aid.

Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi said the federal funding arrived shortly after he took office, making it challenging to simultaneously “get a grasp of what the city needs” and assemble staff to administer it. The city plans to use the money for stormwater, sewer and water main projects, among other things, and should have most of it obligated soon, Bazzi said.

Progress was delayed because “we had to go through a tedious process” before putting projects out for bids, he said.

As the federal deadline nears, some states and local governments are making backup plans to ensure they use all the money.

This spring, Missouri told the Treasury it had obligated 99 percent of its nearly $2.7 billion allotment. But some projects have fallen through or appear unlikely to need their full funding.

So lawmakers and Republican Gov. Mike Parson approved a revised spending plan that eliminated $49 million intended for COVID-19 response efforts and $16 million to remodel an old mental health facility for use in a sex offender rehabilitation program, among other things. Those funds were reallocated to dozens of new projects, including a college engineering building and a health care worker training program.

The Missouri Legislature also budgeted $150 million of American Rescue Plan funds for K-12 public schools as a fallback option if other projects don’t get moving. Several lawmakers in the conservative Freedom Caucus voted no, suggesting the federal pandemic aid was driving up federal debt and inflation.

“I’m fine if we were to give it back,” Republican state Sen. Rick Brattin, the Freedom Caucus chairman, told the AP. “We could at least hold our head high and say that we didn’t continue to contribute to the financial collapse of the American dollar.”

Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Lincoln Hough, a Republican, said lawmakers don’t have to agree with the federal funding to nonetheless use it.

“When we have it, in my opinion, we should invest in our communities and invest in our future workforce,” Hough said.

Facing the prospect that some of Connecticut’s $2.8 billion American Rescue Plan allotment could go unused, the state General Assembly this year reallocated $365 million to new purposes. The legislation also laid out a backup plan, directing Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration to reallocate any funds that appear unlikely to be obligated as of Oct. 15 to instead go toward budget shortfalls and higher education.

The city of New Orleans reported obligating 55 percent of its $387.5 million federal allotment as of this spring. But it’s been moving quickly to use the money. As of September, 86 percent has been obligated, New Orleans Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano said. During the summer, the City Council shifted pandemic relief funds away from a couple of projects that faced timing questions to instead fund homeless shelters and clean up illegal dumps. Other slower-moving projects are on a watch list for potential reallocations before year’s end.

“We’re not going to give any of that money back,” Montano said. “There’s too many needs.”

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By JOSH BOAK and MATT BROWN
Associated Press

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order for federal grants that will prioritize projects with labor agreements, wage standards, and benefits such as access to child care and apprenticeship programs.

Biden said the ideas in his order “are common sense.”

“Economists have long believed that these good job standards produce more opportunities, better outcomes for workers and more predictable outcomes for businesses as well,” he said from an Ann Arbor, Michigan, union training center where he made the announcement. “A good union job is building a future worthy of your dreams.”

The Biden administration is trying to make the case that economic growth should flow out of better conditions for workers. His administration has stressed the vital role that organized labor will likely play for Democrats in November’s election. In her matchup against Republican Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris is depending on backing from the AFL-CIO and other unions to help turn out voters in key states.

Biden has prided himself on his support of labor unions, joining striking Michigan union workers on the picket line last year. On Friday, he came on stage to chants of “Thank you, Joe!”

Trump has tried to make inroads with organized labor as well by having Teamsters President Sean O’Brien speak at the Republican National Convention. The Teamsters have yet to formally endorse any candidate, though Harris is expected to meet with them.

Some in the construction industry criticized the order for possibly increasing construction costs and excluding non-unionized workers from projects.

“These policies steer taxpayer-funded infrastructure contracts to unionized businesses and create jobs exclusively for union members at the expense of everyone else and the rule of law,” said Ben Brubeck, an executive with Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction industry trade group.

The order will establish a task force to coordinate policy development with the goal of ensuring more benefits for workers. The administration’s funding for infrastructure, computer chip manufacturing and the development of renewable energy sources has led to a wave of projects.

By the administration’s count, its incentives have prompted $900 billion worth of private-sector investments in renewable energy and manufacturing. Those commitments have yet to resonate much with voters who are more focused on the lingering damage caused by inflation spiking in 2022, but many projects will take several years to come to fruition.

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By FATIMA HUSSEIN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is returning to southwest Wisconsin to make good on his promise to provide new investments in rural electrification and other infrastructure improvements.

Biden will be in Westby on Thursday to announce $7.3 billion in investments for 16 cooperatives that will provide electricity for rural areas across 23 states. The intent is to bring down the cost of badly needed internet connections in hard-to-reach areas.

Funding for the project comes from the Democrats’ , signed into law in August 2022 and passed in Congress along party lines. The law invests roughly $13 billion in rural electrification across multiple programs and will create 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, according to the White House.

The administration calls it the largest investment in rural electrification since the New Deal in the 1930s.

Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win states in November’s presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden won the state in 2020 by about 20,000 votes, flipping Wisconsin to the Democratic column after Trump narrowly won it in 2016.

And Thursday’s trip will be a return to a state that Biden visited early in his presidency. Then, he made a promise to provide, among other , better internet to rural areas.

“It isn’t a luxury; it’s now a necessity, like water and electricity,” Biden said at the La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility in June 2021. “And this deal would provide for it for everyone, while bringing down the cost of internet service across the board.”

White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian told reporters Wednesday that when the president returns to Wisconsin, “he will have delivered on so many of those promises.”

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By JOSH BOAK and COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House hosted a summit Thursday to help speed up construction projects tied to the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure law as the Biden administration tries to improve coordination with the mayors and governors who directly account for 90 percent of the spending.

“This is the first time we’ve tried this in 50 years on this level,” said Mitch Landrieu, the White House’s infrastructure coordinator and a New Orleans mayor. “We’re going to really push hard to make it go faster and try to do it better, and try to get at least all the federal agencies focused on accelerating the pace of design, construction, permitting.”

The summit comes at a critical moment for the nearly year-old law as high inflation and worker and material shortages are threatening to delay many projects.

At stake is a legacy-making investment championed by President Joe Biden, who has said that it’s the largest set of public works projects since the Interstate Highway System began in the 1950s during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency. Biden has repeatedly told voters this election year that the government can deliver results with Democrats and Republicans working together.

At a Los Angeles subway line construction site, Biden said Thursday that the infrastructure investments were crucial for improving people’s quality of life and economic opportunities.

“The transit system needs an upgrade badly — you know that,” he said. “It needs to connect poor neighborhoods, ease traffic congestion, air pollution and make it easier for people to get around.”

The president spoke on the heels of an inflation report showing that prices climbed 8.2 percent from a year ago. He said he would address the cost of gasoline in remarks in the coming week.

“The price of gas is still too high and we need to keep working to bring it down,” he said. “I’ll have more to say about that next week.”

White House officials declined to provide additional context, but Biden said later during a stop at a taco shop that he was speaking to Saudi Arabia after the kingdom’s recent announcement that it planned to cut oil production. People should “stay tuned,” he said.

Administration officials plan to use the White House summit to smooth the way for accelerating the pace of construction, which in turn can help to control costs and maximize the value of dollars spent.

The Transportation Department is setting up an internal center to provide best practices on project design, planning and construction for state and local leaders. The Commerce Department will have a “Dig Once” effort so that construction workers are not repeatedly punching holes into roads to lay water pipes, broadband connections and electricity and natural gas lines, in addition to other efforts by government agencies and industry groups.

“I just fully expect that the more we work on this, and the better we get, the more money we’re going to save and the more time we’re going to save,” said Landrieu, who spoke at the event along with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, among others.

Roughly 3,000 people were expected to gather in-person and online for the summit. It overlapped with Biden’s being away from the White House as he travels to Western states.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock will speak on a panel about getting projects done on time. He said inflation, worker shortages and supply chain issues have each been barriers and cause an increase as high as 30 percent in forecasted costs.

“All of those issues are the most critical threat to what we’re trying to do,” Hancock said.

Denver is using federal funds to ensure that neighborhoods remain connected as express lanes are added to a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 70 that bisects the city. Hancock wanted to ensure that the neighborhoods on either side of the highway were not cut off from each other, which could make it more difficult for children to attend school. Funding from the infrastructure law provided an additional $14 million to keep neighborhoods intact, with the project scheduled for completion in 2026.

Hancock said that the infrastructure law also created an “unprecedented” opportunity to partner with female and minority-owned contractors.

“We should not let this moment pass by,” he said.

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By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to protect workers and residents from extreme heat after a dangerously hot summer that spurred an onslaught of drought-worsened wildfires and caused hundreds of deaths from the Pacific Northwest to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana.

Under a plan announced Monday, the U.S. Departments of Labor and of Health and Human Services as well as other federal agencies are taking steps to reduce heat-related illness and protect public health.

White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy called heat stress a “silent killer” that disproportionately affects the poor, elderly and minority groups. Although not as devastating as wildfires or hurricanes, “heat stress is a significant, real threat that has deadly consequences,” McCarthy said in an interview.

“Many people don’t recognize that heat stress is a real physical problem until it’s too late for them,” she said.

The effort to combat heat stress comes as President Joe Biden is working with world leaders to hammer out next steps against rapidly worsening climate change.

A June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, exacerbated by climate change, caused hundreds of deaths and thousands of emergency room visits for heat-related illnesses, In Louisiana, more than a million people, including the entire city of New Orleans, lost power when Hurricane Ida struck on Aug. 29. At least 12 of the 28 Ida-related deaths in Louisiana were caused by heat, according to the Louisiana Health Department.

As part of the administration’s plan, the Labor Department is launching a program to protect outdoor workers, including agricultural, construction and delivery workers, as well as those working indoors in warehouses, factories and kitchens. Farm and construction workers are at greatest risk of heat stroke and other problems, the White House said, but other workers lacking climate-controlled environments also face risks.

“Rising temperatures pose an imminent threat to millions of American workers exposed to the elements, to kids in schools without air conditioning, to seniors in nursing homes without cooling resources, and particularly to disadvantaged communities,” Biden said in a statement.

“As with other weather events, extreme heat is gaining in frequency and ferocity due to climate change, threatening communities across the country,” Biden added, citing National Weather Service data that extreme heat is now the leading weather-related killer in America.

Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, is set to issue a new rule on heat-illness prevention in outdoor and indoor work settings and will have interventions and workplace inspections carried out on days when the heat index exceeds 80°. The White House called the rule a significant step toward a federal heat standard in U.S. workplaces and said officials will expand the scope of scheduled and unscheduled inspections to eliminate heat-related hazards.

The administration also will expand its Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, to add programs to deal with extreme heat, the White House said. The program is used to provide heat during winter weather but also offers help with purchasing air-conditioning units or paying electric bills for cooling assistance. Those programs will be expanded, and officials will conduct targeted outreach to ensure at-risk households are in a safe temperature environment, McCarthy said.

The administration plans to make more use of schools and other public buildings as cooling centers.
“School cooling centers save lives,” McCarthy said. “They are opportunities for people in every community to actually find relief at a time when they need it most.”

She urged local officials to make use of programs such as “adopt a senior citizen” to conduct wellness checks, making sure that elderly residents are drinking fluids and not overheating. “That kind of personal touch is going to be the difference between an individual living longer and those that are passing away, basically unrecognized in their own homes,” McCarthy said.

The Biden administration has taken steps since its first days in office to tackle climate change.

Biden on Friday announced a pledge with the European Union to cut climate-wrecking methane leaks. Increasingly grim findings from scientists conclude that the world is nearing the point where the level of climate damage from burning oil, gas and coal becomes catastrophic and irreversible.

Those accounts “represent a code red for humanity,” Biden said Friday, citing a recent U.N. report that Earth is getting so hot that temperatures in about a decade will probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders have sought to prevent.

“We have to act, and we have to act now,” Biden said, evoking the “damage and destruction” he has seen in the United States, massive flooding in Europe and other global damage from the warming climate as natural disasters increase in number and severity.

In the past few weeks, Biden has visited California, where firefighters are battling larger, fiercer and deadlier wildfires almost year-round, as well as the northeastern U.S. and Gulf Coast, where Hurricane Ida and its flooding killed scores of people.

As part of the new effort, the administration is focusing on urban “heat islands” where temperatures in cities with fewer trees and higher pavement concentrations can be higher than in surrounding areas. The problem can be more severe in neighborhoods affected by discriminatory practices that deny services to residents of certain areas based on their race or ethnicity, the White House said, citing a recent analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency showing that severe harms from climate change fall disproportionately on minorities and underserved communities.

The administration will make more use urban forestry programs and other “greening” projects to reduce extreme temperatures and heat exposure, the White House said. The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, is starting a series of prize competitions focused on strengthening the nation’s resilience to climate change. The first competition will focus on new ways to protect people at risk of heat-related illness or death during extreme heat events or in connection with other disasters.

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By JOSH BOAK and HANNAH FINGERHUT
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The overwhelming majority of Americans — about eight in 10 — favor plans to increase funding for roads, bridges and ports and for pipes that supply drinking water. But that’s about as far as Democrats and Republicans intersect on infrastructure, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

President Joe Biden has bet that his handshake with a group of Republican senators can help power a $973 billion infrastructure deal through Congress, while Democrats would separately take up a $3.5 trillion proposal that could include money for child tax credits, schools, health care and other priorities. The dual-track approach has produced plenty of drama and uncertainty in Washington, D.C., as negotiations continue, and those divisions seem to extend to the public at large.

The poll finds a slim majority of Americans, 55 percent, approve of Biden’s handling of infrastructure; 42 percent disapprove. About eight in 10 Democrats, but just two in 10 Republicans, approve of Biden on infrastructure.

“I like what he’s done so far,” said Marcos Ommati, 54, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, and edits a military magazine. “The infrastructure plan that he put out there, I think we need that desperately. If you drive around any places in the U.S., you see that the bridges are not in top shape.”

After the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package jumpstarted the economy — possibly creating the risk of inflation — the administration trusts that many voters will cast their ballots in next year’s election on infrastructure and other spending initiatives aimed at helping the economy.

There is general support for strengthening the electric grid, which has been battered this year by a deep freeze in Texas and extreme weather in recent months across the rest of the country. Many of the other infrastructure ideas championed by Biden splinter along party lines, with Republicans largely expressing uncertainty or opposition about many proposals.

Overall, at least six in 10 Americans back funding for local public transit, for affordable housing and for broadband internet service. While strong majorities of Democrats are in favor, fewer than half of Republicans back any of the three.

About two-thirds of Democrats also support funding for passenger and rail service, compared with about four in 10 Republicans. Among Republicans, roughly a quarter say they are opposed and about a third say they hold neither opinion.

Fewer than half of Americans, 45 percent, back funding for electric vehicle charging stations, while 29 percent are opposed. About two-thirds of Democrats, but only about a quarter of Republicans, are in favor. Roughly half of Republicans are opposed.

Slim majorities back expanded child tax credits for families with children and free community college for those who have not yet been to college. About three-quarters of Democrats favor both proposals.

Only about a quarter of Republicans support free community college, while about six in 10 are opposed. Republican views are more mixed on the expanded child tax credit: 34 percent are in favor, while 42 percent are opposed; another 24 percent say they hold neither opinion.

Support is generally stronger for funding for free preschool programs, with about two-thirds in support, including about eight in 10 Democrats and about half of Republicans. Three in 10 Republicans are opposed.

But those investments in children and preschool strike voters like Alan Gioannetti as distortions of the idea of infrastructure. He equates the concept with anything that involves the work of engineers.

“If I need the foundation on my house repaired, I’m not going to call a social worker — I’ll call an engineer,” said Gioannetti, 69, who retired from the oil and gas business and lives in Seabrook, Texas. He takes a similarly dim view on Biden: “Being in the energy business, this new clown we have for a president screwed everything up for my friends and family.”

To pay for infrastructure improvements, about two-thirds of Americans support raising taxes on corporations and raising taxes on households earning more than $400,000 annually. But again, there is a divide on taxes as many Republicans lawmakers believe the increases would hurt economic growth.

At least eight in 10 Democrats, but about four in 10 Republicans, support raising taxes on corporations or households earning over $400,000 annually. Close to four in 10 Republicans oppose both.

The tax issue is as much about fairness as many Americans see the existing rules as enabling billionaires such as the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, to pay at lower rates than people in the middle class.

“The tax system has allowed people to take advantage of their wealth, and I pay more taxes,” said Amy Stauffer, of Hesston, Kansas, who voted for Biden. “I pay more taxes than Jeff Bezos. Something’s wrong with that.”

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By JOSH BOAK
Associated Press

President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order that will reduce the ability of employers to prevent workers from going to rival firms and remove some of the state occupational licensing requirements that make it harder to land a job.

The order is designed to improve workers’ opportunities in the economy, increase their chances of employment and generate more competition among U.S. employers, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

“This affects construction workers, hotel workers, many blue collar jobs, not just high level executives,” Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that Biden “believes that if someone offers you a better job, you should be able to take it.”

The order would be a key test as to whether empowering workers will lead to pay hikes and smooth the way for them to move to parts of the country where their skills are most in demand. It also enables Biden to show in the 2022 congressional elections how Democratic policies are focused on workers, a key argument as Republicans have increasingly tried to frame their party as backing the working class.

The forthcoming order will direct the Federal Trade Commission to restrict and potentially bar so-called noncompete agreements, which have stopped workers in industries including fast food and Big Tech from going to other employers for higher pay. A 2019 analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimated that 36 million to 60 million workers could be subject to noncompete agreements.

The order also seeks to ban “unnecessary” occupational licensing that can hurt the earning power of military spouses, skilled immigrants and former prisoners. The requirements can limit the ability of teachers or hair stylists to move across state lines, while also making some spend money at for-profit schools to affirm skills they already have. Roughly 30 percent of U.S. jobs require a license, according to a 2018 FTC report.

This effort builds on work begun in 2015 by the Obama administration to get states to reduce the burdens from their licensing requirements.

The order will also toughen guidance to the FTC and the Justice Department to prevent employers from sharing wage and benefits data with each other so they can suppress worker incomes. The New York Times first reported Wednesday all the worker-focused elements of the order.

It was unclear when the order would be signed.

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