Local economic development

Economic Development Administration: Congress should appropriate $275 million annually for Economic Development Administration (EDA) Public Works, Economic Adjustment, manufacturing, regional innovation, and planning projects. These funds help accelerate small-scale manufacturing and provide communities with assistance to create sustainable economic growth opportunities through locally driven initiatives. The EDA provides grants for planning, technical assistance, and infrastructure construction that communities can use to leverage further resources.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development: Congress should fund the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development program by appropriating the authorized levels in the Agriculture Act of 2014 for Community Facilities, Rural Business Development, Rural Cooperative Service, and other key programs, at an annual level of $2.33 billion. Reforms are also needed in order to fund the projects that uphold the long-term goals and vision of a community, sustain the community’s ongoing needs for the life of the project, and improve residents’ access to daily necessities.

Expand Appalachian Community Renewal: Congress and the administration should expand bipartisan support for planning and implementation grants, infrastructure upgrades, and job training programs at the Appalachian Regional Commission, EDA, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), by providing $1 billion annually and instituting reforms to ensure the best projects receive funding.

Manufacturing Extension Partnerships: The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is the only public-private partnership created to serve U.S. manufacturers, with a focus on small- and midsized enterprises (representing 99% of all U.S. manufacturing firms). When local government leaders need to help their current manufacturers or to attract new manufacturing, they turn to the MEP. More than 88,000 manufacturers have worked with MEP, leading to $100 billion in sales, $16 billion in cost savings, and 800,000 manufacturing jobs. Congress should continue the investment in the valuable MEP manufacturing program, providing $150 million annually for the 51 MEP centers located in every state and Puerto Rico.

Department of Labor (DOL) Apprentice Grants and Promise Grants: These programs support workers with training and apprenticeships. American workers continue to struggle to advance and maintain family-wage jobs, while U.S. companies continue to seek a talented workforce. DOL should continue and boost Apprenticeship grant programs at $100 million annually and the America’s Promise Job-Driven grant program for innovative job training partnerships at $100 million annually.

Rebuilding downtown and core areas

National policies and resources can unleash community revitalization, economic development, and creation and the creation of healthy, vibrant downtowns and neighborhoods. These goals can be furthered by federal investments in:

Create a Public Square Initiative: Congress and the administration should launch a new “Public Square” initiative to provide $100 million in National Park Service grants that are leveraged by local government, philanthropic, and crowdfunding resources, to support the design and construction of public spaces such as parks, recreational areas, community centers, public waterfronts, and public squares.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Neighborhood Renewal: Congress should improve and expand to $1 billion annually the HUD Choice Neighborhoods Program, including both Planning-Action and Implementation Grants, to support struggling communities and provide necessary resources for neighborhood renewal.

Create a Department of Housing and Urban Development “Anchor Institution Initiative”: Anchor institutions, including hospitals and healthcare systems, colleges, universities, and cultural institutions, are driving economic development, job creation, and private investments in the struggling communities they serve. America’s cities and towns call for the creation of a new “Anchor Institutions Initiative” at HUD that would provide $25 million annually for $250,000 strategic planning grants to communities to boost economic development and revitalization in neighborhoods with key local anchors.

National Endowment for the Arts Public Arts Grants: Local communities use the arts to boost creativity, raise property values, drive economic development and revitalization, reduce crime and blight, and enhance education for children and families. Congress should continue to support National Endowment for the Arts programs at $150 million annually.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Sustainable Communities: Congress should fund this office at $11.1 million to support locally led, community-driven efforts to revitalize local economies and attain better environmental and human health outcomes. This includes technical assistance that includes economic and fiscal health, downtown revitalization and the expansion and leveraging of broadband internet access.

Housing & neighborhoods

Localities need tools to leverage private funding to improve health outcomes and local quality of life in struggling communities. The federal government can support redevelopment and livability with:

Affordable Housing Tax Credits: These tax credits are the single most important resource for financing affordable housing, creating opportunities for low-income Americans, and incentivizing private investment in the development and preservation of affordable housing projects. Congress should preserve the 9% and 4% credits for private investments. With a recently lowered corporate tax rate, this tax credit is less valuable, which means that Congress should shore up this incentive through approaches such as accelerating the time period to claim the credit, increasing their percentage against qualified basis, and other approaches.

Preserve National Housing Trust Fund: Preserve, as authorized, and ensure that annual payments from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to support the federal National Housing Trust Fund, which is critical to the development and preservation of affordable housing projects.

The National Park Service (NPS) Land & Water Conservation Fund: This program invests earnings from offshore oil and gas leasing to help strengthen communities, preserve our history, and protect our national endowment of land and waters using zero taxpayer dollars. Congress should permanently authorize and provide the full authorized amount of $900 million annually, including $155 million in State and Local Assistance Grants, to continue its bipartisan commitment to support recreational planning, acquiring lands and waters, and developing outdoor recreational facilities.

Preserve transit-oriented development and local project eligibility in the Transportation Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Act (TIFIA) and Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan programs to ensure local communities can realize the full economic and health benefits of their investments in infrastructure and livable communities.

Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) provides communities with resources that can be used for a variety of needs, including infrastructure, housing, and community revitalization. Congress should continue to provide $3 billion annually for this critical program.

The HOME Investment Partnership program provides formula grants to States and localities that communities use - often in partnership with local nonprofit groups - to invest in affordable housing for rent or homeownership or to provide direct rental assistance to low-income people. Investments include building, buying, and/or rehabilitating affordable housing. HOME is the largest Federal block grant to state and local governments designed exclusively to create affordable housing for low-income households. Congress should provide $1.6 billion for this important program.

Rural housing assistance, including the Housing Preservation Grants program and Rural Housing Grants provide funding to local governments, nonprofits, and tribal communities, for the repair or rehabilitation of housing occupied by low and very low income people. Congress should ensure communities can continue to provide these services by allocating $5 million for Housing Preservation Grants and $28.7 million for Rural Housing Grants.

The Housing Trust Fund (HTF) complements existing federal, state and local efforts to increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, including homeless families. HTF funds may be used for the acquisition, new construction, reconstruction, and/or rehabilitation of non-luxury housing with suitable amenities. Congress should provide at least $3.5 billion.

Supportive Housing for the Elderly, known as the Section 202 program, helped expand the supply of affordable housing with supportive services for the elderly. It provided direct loans and capital advances to build housing for very low-income elderly and provided seniors with options that allow them to live independently but in an environment that provides support activities such as cleaning, cooking, transportation, and others. Although no new funding has been available for Section 202 capital advances since 2012, affordable senior housing developments that were built with Section 202 funds continue to provide housing and services to their residents. Congress should provide at least $533 million to fully fund and expand this program.

Indian Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG) program provides direct grants for use in developing viable Indian and Alaska Native Communities, including decent housing, a suitable living environment, and economic opportunities, primarily for low and moderate income persons. Congress should allocate $56 million for this important program.

Infrastructure investment

Local government leaders urge the administration and Congress to provide resources and support to small and medium sized communities seeking to improve their infrastructure through:

Community-scale and priority transportation projects

Localities welcome national incentives for private investment in infrastructure. Yet, federal transportation policy cannot leave community-scale projects in small and medium localities behind, as these projects may not be large or lucrative enough to be underwritten and financed by complex private-public transactions. Key community-scale projects include roads and bridges essential for economic development opportunities, complete street upgrades, public transit projects, transit-oriented development, and walking/biking trails to connect communities. Infrastructure authorizations and programs should support community-scale infrastructure approaches through expanded public works resources such as:

Transportation Alternatives Program grants to support safe, walkable, connected streets, trails, and other transportation investments, budgeted at over $900 million annually under the current Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.

$2.5 billion annually forU.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) TIGER grants, including TIGER Planning grants. DOT should commit to provide a fair share of TIGER grants to medium-sized communities.

Passenger rail and related investment programsprovide critical connections between small communities and economic opportunities. Amtrak relies on federal support to run its national network. Congress should sustain the Amtrak Passenger Rail system, including the national network, state-supported routes, and the northeast corridor at $1.5 billion or greater and fund the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure Safety Improvements (CRISI) and Restoration and Enhancement Grant (REG) programs at FAST Act authorized levels. These grant programs ensure Amtrak can make necessary improvements to maintain and expand the national passenger rail network.

Fund Federal Transit Administration (FTA) programsto support locally-driven transportation options that connect communities and provide access to jobs and opportunity for residents. The bipartisan FAST Act authorized $2.45 billion annually between FY19-FY20 for those FTA programs not covered by the highway trust fund.

Reauthorize and reform transportation programs to repair existing infrastructure and build smart new community-scale projects, and ensure the long-term stability of the highway trust fund to maintain economic development opportunities.

Create Regional Infrastructure Financing Banks (via TIFIA and RRIF) to allow regions and local governments in need of greater capacity to finance infrastructure and redevelopment projects. Too often federal financing programs are too burdensome and costly. To level the playing field for local communities and stakeholders to access TIFIA and RRIF financing, Congress should consider expanding eligible applicants to include lenders and capital funds, while expanding project eligibility to include public and privately sponsored infrastructure revolving funds, including transit-oriented development revolving funds.

Broadband internet access through gigabit zones

EDA and/or USDA should provide $2.5 billion annually in grants and low-cost loan support to cities and rural areas for planning, engineering and deployment of gigabit-speed broadband systems in under-served areas and economic opportunity zones. Increasingly, access to the internet means access to economic opportunity. These investments ensure the people of America’s small and midsized communities can enjoy the economic opportunities available online.

Water infrastructure funding & integrated water infrastructure approaches:

Congress should expand funding for State Clean Water & Drinking Water Revolving Funds to $5 billion annually for drinking water and $9 billion annually for clean water.

Congress should create an integrated water infrastructure program that streamlines and harmonizes complicated clean water requirements for sanitary sewer, combined sewer, and stormwater infrastructure systems, including a 50-pilot initiative to deploy these common-sense approaches, funded at $25 million annually.

The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act helps communities make investments in our nation's water infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost loans for regionally and nationally significant projects. Congress should address the need for renewed water infrastructure by providing funding at authorized levels for FY18-19.