PN: Is there any sense that the reporting requirements or the compliance requirements are going to be unwieldy, or a barrier to states and local government entities getting grants or being able to manage them?
Patterson: Yes, especially the small towns are concerned about that because it’s something that they haven’t dealt with a lot. We’re going to work with them on that too and see if we can assess that need and how we can help with that.
But, yeah, with great power comes great responsibility and with great money comes great compliance. And that’s a real issue. It is an issue not just for small towns, but for the state agencies as well that have this influx of money.
One of the realities of having to administer this kind of money and get it out the door is at some point you have to admit you need more people to do it. In the water area that I was talking about, with the five-time increase in drinking water money and doubling of clean water money, we had to staff up and add people to review all the loan applications and be able to administer the loans.
So, this is a great opportunity, but it poses some challenges to try and get it all spent and administered.
PN: There’s a lot of language in the infrastructure law about equity. I’m curious about opportunities Delaware sees to address historical inequities, whether that’s in transportation or any other sector?
Patterson: Yeah, that is all through this law in many different programs. One of our first competitive grants that we got in the transportation arena is a RAISE grant that will remake an area of what’s called Route 9 just south of Wilmington. That is an area of traditionally disadvantaged communities. We got $6 million of planning money to not only slim down that road, a road diet as the transportation people call it, but also create bike paths and walking paths. That is one of our first marquee projects.
PN: Are there any lessons learned so far in your state that you would share with other states?
Patterson: In some ways the job of Delaware as we spend this money is a little easier than other places because everything is so close geographically here.
One of the first conversations that I had was with the coordinator from Alaska. We were talking about the electric vehicle charging requirements. There’s a requirement that you have to place [charging stations[ every 50 miles along major travel routes. We started talking about that and he said, ‘Don’t you think 50 miles is too small — we have stretches of highway in Alaska where there’s nothing for like 100 miles.’ I was like, ‘Dude, I’m from Delaware. We’re going to put like three in and be done.’
So, some of our challenges are unique and some of them don’t really apply to other places. But it’s been good to have at least the camaraderie of figuring it out and being able to compare notes.
PN: Lastly, what is the historical significance of this infrastructure package and what it means for states like yours?
Patterson: I’ve been in state government for over 20 years now, and I’ve never seen this level of funding. You look at the breadth of it, all the different programs — it goes into ports and airports and coastal resilience. There’s money in here for Amtrak, which we don’t administer, but goes through our state. And we have the world’s most famous Amtrak passenger, obviously. That corridor is gonna get money and investment that has been talked about for years.
It’s all a lot of work. And you know, at this point, it’s still a little unclear how it’s all gonna work out. But the level of investment here is remarkable.