In today’s highly connected world, American infrastructure is as important as ever, with over 4 million miles of roads, 140,000 miles of railroad tracks,19,633 airports and more than 300 seaports, including 208 commercial ones — all of which are integral to both the flow of the U.S. economy as well as the livelihoods of each and every American citizen.
Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers release their report card on the state of the American infrastructure as a whole, as well as breaking down each sector of infrastructure and grading it. The last report came out in 2021, and gave the U.S. a cumulative score of a C — the first time the United States has been out of the D grade range in 20 years. According to ASCE, some of the given reasons as to why the grade is so low are poor water infrastructure — a water main breaks every two minutes on average and around 6 billion gallons of treated water get wasted every day — and the fact that over 43 percent of the roads in the U.S. are in poor or mediocre condition. Many categories, such as roads, dams, stormwater systems and levees, were graded as a D, with railroads and seaports being the saving grace, receiving the only grades of B. According to White House data, public investments in the infrastructure as a share of the U.S. gross domestic product has dropped by over 40 percent since its peak in 1961.
One monumental step towards improving the current state of U.S. infrastructure was the historic bipartisan infrastructure law, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) enacted in 2021, which saw the federal government invest over $550 billion in new funding for modernization and overall infrastructure improvements. As of May 2024, there are more than 56,000 projects underway all over the country, which is 40 percent higher, compared to the 40,000 projects six months prior. Thanks to IIJA, so far we have seen improvements on over 165,000 miles of roads, and over 9,400 bridge repair projects have commenced. Additionally, funding has been delivered to over 450 ports, 300 airport terminal projects and 1,400 water and sanitation projects.
As our world becomes more modern and connected, the risk of cyberattacks is growing, and our country’s cybersecurity systems are not immune from malicious attacks. If hackers disrupt things like communication networks, transportation or utilities that people depend on every day, it could cause serious problems for the economy and people’s lives. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act addresses potential concerns by including several programs specifically focused on cybersecurity and allows money from other programs to be spent on preparing for and responding to cyber threats. Among the newest program designed to combat cyberattacks, State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program (SLCGP) is a newly created program that provides funding to state and local government to implement new cybersecurity projects as well address any cybersecurity risks and threats to ensure the safety of their citizens and their private information.
The SLCGP is just one example of how states and localities can take their cybersecurity into their own hands and implement a plan that addresses their concerns specifically, and is just one of the many grant programs that can be found in the Security Industry Association (SIA) Security and Infrastructure Grants Guide. This guide was created as a starting point for companies to navigate the complicated grants processes of both the federal and state governments. This guide is a tool to help companies, individuals, communities, nonprofits and other stakeholders not only find a grant that they are looking for, but also access important details related to the grant, as well as a link to the webpage for the specific grant. The Security and Infrastructure Grants Guide can be used in tandem with GrantED: SIAs Comprehensive Security Grants Training Course and the SIA Federal Grants Guide by companies and government entities to effectively find and secure federal and state grants.
