The U.S. Department of the Treasury released a report detailing how Tribal governments are using a historic level of financial support through the American Rescue Plan to provide critical recovery assistance and improve the health and well-being of Tribal citizens. The $20B in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds allocated to Tribal governments represents the largest single infusion of federal funding into Indian Country.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has pledged support for an affordable housing bill that could lead to the development of 500,000 starter homes in struggling communities over the next decade. The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, introduced in both the House and Senate, would offer a tax incentive to developers to minimize their risk when building or rehabilitating existing housing. In some areas of the U.S., the cost of rehabilitating or building a home could exceed the eventual sale price. This bill would fill the "value gap," up to 35 percent of eligible development costs for new homes.

The Department of the Interior announced final guidance for Tribes on how to apply for the first $50M in grant funding available under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides a total of $4.7B to address orphaned wells across the country, including $150M for Tribal communities over five years.

The federal funding that's been allocated for local communities over the last few years has provided administrators with an unprecedented opportunity to address a wide range of social challenges including access to education, connectivity, homelessness, and affordable housing. City administrators from Boston, MA are allocating $60M in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to develop 150 parcels of public land into income-restricted affordable housing.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $550M to support community-based clean energy in state, Tribal, and local governments — serving more than 250 million Americans. This investment, through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, will support communities across the country to develop local programming and deploy clean energy technologies to cut emissions and reduce consumers' energy costs.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) requests public input by December 21, 2022, to inform how NRCS will fund the deployment of climate-smart practices on US farms, ranches, and forestlands through four Farm Bill conservation programs. NRCS is also requesting input on funding to quantify carbon sequestration and carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions at the field scale.

The White House announced through the Department of Energy that it is soliciting grant applications for $13B in new financing under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill for the expansion and modernization of the U.S. electric grid. The $1.2T bill, passed last year, provides $10.5B to harden power systems against growing threats like extreme weather and climate change, the Department said, and a further $2.5B to help build new transmission lines.

November 15, 2022, marked the one-year anniversary of President Biden signing the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA) into law. The IIJA made investments in roads, bridges, electric vehicles, broadband, hydrogen hubs, cybersecurity, water infrastructure, and grid resilience, among other areas of infrastructure.

The CHIPS for America initiative will invest $50B to supercharge the U.S. semiconductor industry and revitalize our innovation ecosystem. This funding includes $11B for research and development—the focal point of which will be the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), an innovation hub that will advance semiconductor technology and seed new industries built on the capabilities of a wide range of advanced chips.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) appropriates nearly $27B to provide financial assistance to certain entities in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. This Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (the Fund) prioritizes funding for projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The EPA is currently soliciting comments for insight into how best to design and implement the Fund to award grants to eligible parties.

The USDA is accepting applications to support economic development and create jobs for people in rural America under the Rural Business Development Grant program, which supports business opportunities or business enterprise projects in rural communities. Eligible entities are rural towns, communities, state agencies, authorities, nonprofits, federally recognized Tribes, public institutions of higher education, and non-profit cooperatives.

The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has signed a cooperative agreement with the Chickahominy Indian Tribe Eastern division under the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA) program. LFPA empowers states, tribes, and territories through cooperative agreements to provide for their communities with the purchase of domestic local foods in support of local, regional, and underserved and tribal farmers and ranchers.

The USDA is lending $108M to help Citizens Medical Center in Colby, KS expand critical healthcare services. The new facility will incorporate operations of both the hospital (Citizens Medical Center) and family practice clinic (Family Center for Health Care) under one roof, including all currently available services plus additional capabilities that include future service expansions.

Bridgestone announced a $35M climate-smart grant by the USDA to invest in desert shrub guayule to expand natural rubber production in the U.S. and offer a solution for growers amid the ongoing water crisis in the Southwest with a more environmentally sustainable crop. The investment in guayule will allow natural rubber production expansion in the SW U.S. with lowered greenhouse gas emissions and job creation in the region for local U.S. farmers and Native American tribes.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that more than $33M in Community Development Block Grant funding has been awarded to dozens of municipalities for local infrastructure improvement and housing rehabilitation projects. The grants are designed to help communities provide decent affordable housing and safe living environments primarily for low- and moderate-income residents.

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service launched a new and innovative initiative for healthier school meals through a $50M grant opportunity that will support collaboration with the food industry to develop nutritious, appetizing school meals for students. This launch follows through on a commitment made in the administration's National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office announced 31 teams as finalists for The Sunny Awards for Equitable Community Solar. The Sunny Awards is a $100,000 prize competition that recognizes community solar projects and programs that employ or develop best practices to increase equitable access to the meaningful benefits of community solar for subscribers and their communities.

The EPA announced the closing of a $52M WIFIA loan in Pflugerville, Texas--the first in the state's history. The project will expand the City of Pflugerville's drinking water system capacity to meet projected demand and improve treatment processes to address water quality concerns. The project will upgrade the raw and finished water pump stations, install new pretreatment, filtration, and solids handling technologies, and provide a more efficient disinfection process.

Milwaukee-based UMOS has been given a grant worth nearly $57 million from the United States Department of Agriculture to assist roughly 75,000 farm workers and meatpackers nationwide, including more than 14,000 in Wisconsin. The grant includes a one-time payment of $600 to be paid to more than 75,000 eligible applicants nationwide within a two-year period.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded grants for projects to monitor air quality in 37 states, with a focus on minority communities and other areas overburdened by pollution. A total of 132 projects will receive $53.4M to enhance air quality monitoring near chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites — part of a commitment by the Biden administration to focus on environmental justice in communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.