Supporting Infrastructure To Shore Up America

America’s rundown infrastructure is heading for a makeover following the passage in the Senate of the sweeping historic legislation in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on Aug. 9. Together with the budget bill under consideration in the House of Representatives, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be created as the Biden Build Back Better agenda comes to fruition. In a statement, IBEW President Lonnie Stephenson said the IBEW is pleased with investments modernizing the electrical grid, transit, and rail, in addition to the plan to construct the charging infrastructure necessary for widescale adoption of electric vehicles, buses, trains and trucks.

"We commend President Biden’s leadership in addressing climate change as an urgent crisis forour country and encourage the Biden administration to continue supporting carbon-free nuclear energy,” he said. “The majority of infrastructure investments passed by the Senate do include labor standards; I also hope and expect that the Biden administration and congressional leaders will continue to push for labor standards in all infrastructure investments, particularly in the critical area of broadband expansion, so that the new jobs created will be good union jobs.”

IBEW members also contributed to the bill’s gathering momentum in favor of the bill. Over the summer, IBEW members sent 12,700 emails to congressional offices and 440 letters to the editor through the IBEW Action website at ibewaction.org. On July 22, President Stephenson was among a handful of labor and business leaders invited to the White House to discuss infrastructure job