Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Ecosystem Restoration Active

What is the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and what are Ecosystem Restoration funds?

On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (PL-117-58), making a once-in-a-generation investment in the Nation’s infrastructure and economic competitiveness. This landmark investment will rebuild America’s critical infrastructure, tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis, advance environmental justice, and drive the creation of good-paying union jobs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s focused investments in healthy ecosystems across the country will help grow the economy sustainably and equitably and create thriving communities.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) will invest Ecosystem Restoration funds ($905 million made available over five years) strategically, justly, and efficiently to improve the functioning, resilience, and ecological adaptability of ecosystems in a manner that boosts local economies, puts Americans to work, and strengthens partnerships with States, Tribes, territories and other stakeholders to restore and connect important ecosystems, support Tribal climate resilience, and restore culturally important lands—all guided by science and best practices for effective restoration.

Ecosystems Restoration Guiding Principles:

Build Climate Adaptation and Resilience for Ecosystems and Communities: Restoration activities that maintain or improve the ability of an ecosystem to be resilient or adapt to current and future climate change so that it provides critical ecosystem services and equitably supports the sustainable, traditional, or cultural uses important to surrounding communities. 

Restore or Improve Cores and Connectivity: Restoration activities that maintain or improves the condition of Bureau/Office-identified of high quality, critical, or otherwise prioritized “cores” of ecosystems, habitats, sacred spaces, or areas of functioning natural processes and climate-robust connectivity between the cores. Of particular focus are cores and connections identified as being at highest risk to transformation, invasion, reduced functioning, altered disturbance regimes, or other climate- or human-induced hazards.  

Build and Leverage Partnerships for Restoration at Scale. Activities that achieve greater restoration impact by leveraging other restoration projects and programs or by building partnerships for collaborative conservation with State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners. This includes co-stewardship opportunities with Tribal partners, in a manner consistent with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the White House Council on Environmental Quality memorandum to recognize Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge. 

What Ecosystem Restoration Activities involve USGS science?

There are ten Activities listed under the Ecosystem Restoration section of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, seven of which have funds are appropriated to the Department of the Interior. Of these seven Activities, the USGS is conducting science to support Activities 6 (Invasive Species), 7 (Resilient Recreation Sites on Federal Lands), 8 (Revegetation and Hazard Mitigation on Mined Lands), & 9 (National Revegetation Effort including National Seed Strategy) and The American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas which supports all four activities in USGS. Each Ecosystem Restoration Activity is linked below. These pages will be updated during fiscal years 2022-2026.