By Tom WilliamsJanuary 14, 2020 5:21:24It’s not unusual for Congress to consider a major infrastructure project in a given year, but this time around, Congress is spending nearly $2.7 million to upgrade the nation’s electric grid, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.
The money will be used to purchase new substations and upgrade existing ones.
The infrastructure project will help to address the “disaster” of Hurricane Sandy, which claimed nearly 1,100 lives and left the entire Northeast devastated.
Congress passed the Sandy relief bill in January to ensure that the federal government can continue to rebuild after a disaster such as this.
In the coming weeks, the House will consider and pass a version of the bill that will include $2 billion in funding for the electric grid.
“The House of Representatives is making a serious investment in the future of America’s power grid, including $2,700 million in additional funding to improve reliability, maintain reliability and reduce power outages, which is vital to the stability of the U.S. electrical grid,” the House bill states.
“The bill also includes funding to install new substation and energy efficiency measures to further protect our electrical grid and support economic recovery from Sandy.”
Congress is also considering a $1.9 billion loan for a replacement pipeline for the Northeast that runs through the New York City region.
A new pipeline was built between New York and New Jersey in the 1990s and was built to carry natural gas and other natural gas liquids from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico.
This pipeline is supposed to provide energy to the Northeast for years to come.
