Insights from Presidential Advisor Mitch Landrieu
Insights from Presidential Advisor Mitch Landrieu, IIJA Program Administrator
Mitch Landrieu, advisor to President Biden and Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA) administrator (and mayor who rebuilt New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina) spoke at Duke University on September 7.
His talk was entitled “Yes, We Can Do Big Things: Lessons Learned from Rebuilding America.” Mitch’s knowledge, caring and humor are stunning, and President Biden picked an incredible public servant for this role.
Here are my insights from Mitch’s talk:
1. I have partnered with three highly qualified nonprofits to submit grant applications for IRA funds. IRA and IIJA programs are so profoundly oversubscribed that only about 10 percent of the grant applications will be funded. So far, one of the three applications I have written has been rejected. I learn about two more applications later this month.
2. There is so much need, and one would think that $1.2 trillion from the IIJA and $740 billion from the IRA would make a dent, and it will, but only a small dent. As Mitch said, President Biden’s efforts are only the start.
3. President Biden is clear that nobody should be left behind, regardless of red state or blue state. In Alabama, for instance, too many people do not have running water, and that problem is being solved through the IIJA. I am guessing that it is projects like these – locations where people do not having running water or electricity or internet – that are being funded first. I just did a quick search and 2.2 million people in the United States do not have running water and 46 million Americans do not have safe water to drink.
4. As long as the federal government keeps posting grant opportunities (a new one is open now), we plan to keep chasing windmills to help bring climate resilience centers to North Carolina’s underserved communities. Hopefully we will catch at least one of them. But I now realize that we need to look further than the IRA and IIJA and seek foundation money. The North Carolina/South Carolina border gets crushed by hurricanes and that area is one of the poorest in the country. Climate resilience centers to provide safe places for the people during extreme events are very much needed.
The moment is now, some of those funds are coming to North Carolina, and hopefully Eagle Solar & Light can help bring them here!
