Climate-smart infrastructure in the United States—what does it look like and how do we get it built?

The United States has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 50%–52% below 2005 levels by 2030 and to net-zero emissions by 2050. This is in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 °C. Multiple studies show that achieving these targets is technologically feasible and would have net direct costs of less than 1% of GDP (and possibly negative), not accounting for climate benefits or other externalities. Robust federal, state, and local policies would be needed to ensure that infrastructure to enable decarbonization is built at the required pace and scale. Simultaneous investments in adaptation and resilience infrastructure, including upgrading green and grey infrastructure, will be needed to adapt to the consequences of climate change that can no longer be avoided and increase economic and social resilience to more frequent or severe extreme weather events. These kinds of climate smart infrastructure—infrastructure required to support rapid decarbonization and withstand unavoidable climate change impacts—are expansive and varied. Infrastructure investments to enable decarbonization include renewable and other zero- or near-zero-emissions electricity generation; short- and long-duration energy storage; robust and flexible electricity transmission and distribution; charging and refueling infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles; and clean hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture, transportation and storage. Infrastructure investments in adaptation include supporting infrastructure for extreme heat, drought, and wildfire resilience; coastal and inland flood resilience; and public health resilience. Physically deploying this infrastructure depends on a significant investment focused on addressing the causes and impacts of climate change, as well as an intentional effort to adopt processes and practices at all levels of government to facilitate such large-scale infrastructure deployment and reconstruction. Shifting from a status quo to a transformational approach to infrastructure investment and deployment will be essential to addressing the climate crisis. It will also provide an opportunity to rethink how to design and implement infrastructure in a way that increases equity and delivers for the communities it serves.


Introduction
The impacts of climate change are already transforming the built and natural systems and structures society depends upon 1 . In the face of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, changing food and water supplies, and evolving public health challenges, existing infrastructure is insufficient or ill-suited to withstanding, and curbing, climate change. The scale of the climate crisis requires a rethinking of how countries and communities approach infrastructure. In the United States in recent decades maintenance of, or incremental growth from, the infrastructure status quo has been the accepted norm. The immense cost of climate change These categories of climate-smart infrastructure for the energy transition do not encompass all of the economic shifts and policy actions required to achieve our climate goals. For example, these pillars do not address the 11% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions resulting from agriculture in 2020 (EPA 2022b). While not complete, these categories outline the major kinds of climate-smart infrastructure related to decarbonizing our energy system (reducing greenhouse emissions and removing emissions that cannot be reduced), which is responsible for the vast majority of current emissions.
In terms of adaptation, the United States is already experiencing the impacts of climate change, such as new climate conditions and more frequent and destructive extreme weather events, damaging community infrastructure and impacting environmental health and social systems (USGCRP 2018). These infrastructure impacts will worsen in the future; by 2050, annual climate change losses in the United States could be hundreds of billions of dollars (USGCRP 2018). Adapting to these climate impacts, and ensuring existing and new infrastructure's continued usability and usefulness, requires not depending on past climate conditions when making infrastructure decisions, but integrating current and expected climate conditions into infrastructure project design, planning, and implementation (USGCRP 2018). Additionally, the impacts of climate change today, and in the decades to come, are not uniform regionally or distributed and experienced equally. Marginalized, discriminated against, and underinvested in communities have less capacity to plan for and cope with the full array of climate impacts. Investing in adaptation infrastructure for those communities will be particularly important for equitably reducing climate change impacts (USGCRP 2018).
The following sections break down climate-smart infrastructure needs based on their primary purpose: reducing emissions or adaptation.

Infrastructure to reduce and abate emissions
Looking across the core pillars of decarbonization, there are five categories of infrastructure needed to reduce and abate emissions in the United States: clean electricity generation; short and long-duration energy storage; electricity distribution and transmission; charging and refueling infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles; and clean hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture, transportation and storage. These categories are described below, and examples are provided in table 1.

Clean electricity generation
Electricity was 25% of the United States' GHG emissions in 2020 (EPA 2022b). The United States long-term strategy on pathways to reach net-zero by 2050 (United States LTS) targets reaching 100% clean electricity by 2035 as the foundation for net-zero emissions by 2050. Specifically, the LTS envisions a significant increase in renewable energy-solar and wind-through 2050 and maintaining existing nuclear with growth in nuclear generation in the 2030s and 2040s. Fossil fuel generation without carbon capture and storage declines as existing plants retire or are equipped with carbon capture and storage (DOS and EOP 2021). In addition to nuclear and fossil fuel generation with carbon capture and storage, other options for dispatchable electricity generation include hydrogen fueled power plants and natural gas power plants running limited hours per year with carbon removal to compensate for their emissions.

Short and long-term energy storage
In the United States, energy storage is primarily pumped storage hydropower that was installed years ago, but that is rapidly changing as the use of short-duration (e.g. 2-6 h) lithium-ion battery storage soars. Long-duration storage, such as new pumped hydro facilities, compressed air, and flow batteries, will also be needed to maintain grid reliability as intermittent renewables become the dominant source of generation (Ratz et al 2020). This is a priority echoed in the pathways considered by the United States LTS, which discusses storage deployment as a means of supporting more rapid emission reductions in the electricity sector and a key component of grid resiliency (DOS and EOP 2021).

Electricity distribution and transmission
Like storage, distribution and transmission infrastructure is critical to grid resiliency and can catalyze clean electricity (DOS and EOP 2021). It is also the foundation for ensuring that clean electricity generation can be connected to all customers. According to Princeton University's Net-Zero America study, to stay on track to achieve net-zero by 2050, the United States must increase high-voltage transmission capacity by roughly 60% in this decade, and ultimately transmission capacity must triple by 2050. That is expected to require an investment of $360 billion this decade and $2.4 trillion by 2050 (Larson et al 2020).

Charging and refueling infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles
An integral part of planning storage, distribution, and transmission is considering electric vehicle (EV) charging and how EV batteries can serve as a grid resource as well as being essential for decarbonizing transportation. Transportation was the source of 27% of GHG emissions in 2020 (EPA 2022b). Passenger cars and trucks are responsible for most of those emissions, but emissions from airplanes, trains, ships and boats also have an impact (EPA 2022b). Transitioning to zero-emissions vehicles, including in particular EVs, is a vital part of emission reductions, alongside efforts to reduce car use through investments in public transportation. Adequate charging infrastructure is a key enabler for uptake of EVs of all kinds-from school buses to personal vehicles to drayage trucks. One study found that being on track to have 100% passenger EV SOO Green HVDC Link-The SOO Green HVDC Link is an early-stage project proposing a new and innovative approach to transmission. This project would transport wind energy from Iowa to Illinois via an underground HVDC transmission line built along existing railroad rights of way. The underground approach would increase resilience to extreme weather events and minimize impacts, and likely objections. The use of existing rights-of-ways also minimizes new impacts (Howland 2022). Charging and refueling infrastructure for zero-emission vehicles National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program-The NEVI formula program was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and provides $5 billion to states to use for projects on public EV charging infrastructure. The funding from the program is subject to minimum standards and requirements to ensure new charging stations are usable for all Americans and support greater EV deployment (Federal Highway Administration n.d.). Clean hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and storage NET Power Test Facility-Located in La Porte, Texas, the NET Power test facility burns natural gas with oxygen (also known as oxy-combustion), resulting in high-pressure carbon dioxide that spins a turbine to create power. It then reuses some of the carbon dioxide in the power production process, which lowers costs by lowering the amount of oxygen needed. Remaining excess carbon dioxide never reaches the atmosphere and is captured in the system, ready for transport and storage. The La Porte test facility has demonstrated the technological viability of this approach to carbon capture in the power sector, and the potential of having a carbon neutral natural gas power plant contribute to the grid (NET Power n.d.). Adaptation Extreme heat, drought, and wildfire resilience Million Trees LA-The Million Trees LA initiative sought to capture the benefits of urban forestry in Los Angeles through tree planting. The initiative was a city-led effort with multiple partners that started in 2006 and continued for multiple years (USDA n.d.). Coastal and flood resilience Community Schoolyards-Community Schoolyards is a project run by the Trust for Public Land. It looks to unlock to potential of community schoolyards to deliver benefits in terms of equity, health, education, and climate. This includes integrating more green and landscaping into schoolyards, which results in a more porous surface that can help address flooding (Trust for Public Land n.d. Equitable deployment of charging infrastructure is needed to ensure that clean transportation is accessible to all. Per one study, lower-income communities, as well as Black and Hispanic/Latino communities, have especially limited access to charging in cities, where less than 10% of Americans have easy access to public charging (Mobilyze.ai and Toyota Mobility Foundation 2021). Analysis by Forth has found that a charging strategy that is centered on equity and focuses on first meeting the charging needs of those that face the greatest barriers to charging now, will support more rapid passenger transport electrification overall (Allen and Gibson 2022).
2.2.5. Clean hydrogen and carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and storage Some sectors are hard to electrify and, therefore, hard to power with renewable generation; this includes parts of industry, shipping, and aviation. For example, industry alone was responsible for 24% of United States GHG emissions in 2020 (EPA 2022b). While some low-temperature industrial processes can and should be electrified, there is uncertainty about the degree to which higher temperature processes can be reasonably electrified-such as the practicality of replacing current cement kilns dependent on combustible fuels with new kilns that can be heated electrically. In cases like these, alternative innovations such as clean hydrogen, as an alternative fuel option, and carbon dioxide capture, transportation, and storage, as a way of directly capturing emissions from industrial processes, can play an important role in reducing emissions (DOS and EOP 2021). Further, both carbon capture and storage connected to fossil fuel power plants and clean hydrogen combustion can provide a consistently dispatchable energy source to supplement renewable generation (DOS and EOP 2021). Realizing the full potential of commercial scale carbon capture and storage and clean hydrogen generation will require a significant expansion beyond existing smaller-scale deployments. For example, currently the United States has 13 commercial-scale carbon capture facilities, which is about half of all facilities worldwide, but globally carbon capture facilities will ultimately need to number in the thousands to reach climate goals (Carbon Capture Coalition 2021). This increased scale of deployment requires new infrastructure, including carbon dioxide transportation pipelines to securely transport carbon dioxide, injection wells to sequester captured carbon in geologic formations, and hydrogen production and distribution clusters/hubs, all of which have to be carefully designed and maintained to avoid significant leakage.

Infrastructure for adaptation and resilience
Climate-smart infrastructure also includes new or modified physical structures that increase resilience and adaptative capacity to expected future impacts in our changing climate. Infrastructure decisions that have often been made based on past experience need to be supplemented with knowledge of anticipated extreme weather events and climate change impacts (Bochman and Gordon 2021). Climate change, and impacts such as rising temperatures, droughts, flooding, worsening wildfire risk, sea-level rise, and more frequent or destructive storms, will impact the vulnerability and sustainability of United States infrastructure, including roads, drainage infrastructure, bridges, and coastal buildings (Neumann et al 2015). However, proactive infrastructure improvements and deployment can help address this challenge. For example, modeling has found that the impact of climate-change-fueled events on the grid will be substantial, but proactive adaptation strategies could greatly reduce costs (Fant et al 2020). At this point, the United States must invest in both emission reduction and adaptation infrastructure, and in some cases, we can do both at once. We consider three core categories of adaptation infrastructure: extreme heat, drought, and wildfire resilience; coastal and flood resilience; and public health resilience. These categories are described below, and examples are provided in table 1.

Extreme heat, drought, and wildfire resilience
One example of abatement and adaptation infrastructure intersecting is in trees as a form of natural infrastructure. Trees and forests are often thought of as a carbon sink-13% of United States emissions in 2020 were counterbalanced by carbon storage in plants, trees, and soil-and growing and preserving that sink through tree planting and the prevention of wildfires is a climate action priority (EPA 2022b). Beyond carbon sequestration, forests are an important part of adaptation infrastructure. Climate change is a proven and significant driver of wildfires across the Western United States. Forest management and infrastructure that mitigates and manages that risk is essential today and will only become increasingly so (Abatzoglou and Williams 2016). For example, removing biomass from forests can reduce wildfire risk while also providing materials for making cross-laminated timber that can be used to replace carbon-intensive steel in buildings or for producing hydrogen that can replace fossil fuels in industrial applications (Cabiyo et al 2021). Climate change can also result in extreme heat events and worsen urban heat islands. Tree planting in urban settings can help reduce the impacts of deadly heat. Further, having roofs with vegetative layers (green roofs) can also lower temperatures while helping manage storm runoff (EPA 2022a, 2022c).
There is also a role for built or 'grey' infrastructure in addressing the increasing threats of extreme heat, drought, and wildfires. For example, in the context of extreme heat, using reflective paint on roofs and reflective paving materials (cool roofs and cool pavement) can help reduce temperatures in homes or on the streets (EPA 2022a). Further, grey infrastructure can help reduce the impacts of climate-change-fueled droughts and address water quality issues related to climate change; this includes improving existing water infrastructure so it can withstand climate-change-fueled extreme weather events and innovative water management practices that can help limit water demand and maximize water supply (USGCRP 2018).

Coastal and flood resilience
Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme precipitation events, resulting in increased flooding and a failure of existing water infrastructure. On the coasts, this risk is amplified by sea level rise caused by climate change (USGCRP 2018). Addressing the growing threat of climate change in coastal areas requires a portfolio of grey and green infrastructure responses. Grey infrastructure like levees, storm drains, and water supply systems can be reconstructed, maintained, expanded, and bolstered to adapt to increased extreme weather risks-from droughts to floods (USGCRP 2018). Natural infrastructure can also help communities adapt to flooding while storing carbon dioxide and providing social and ecological benefits. Trees have been found to help manage stormwater runoff in urban settings, and replacing concrete and asphalt with green permeable surfaces-for example, greening schoolyards-can reduce flooding risk (Kuehler et al 2017, Trust for Public Land n.d.).
On the coasts, localized grey infrastructure efforts, like local levees and building elevation projects, and shoreline-wide infrastructure armoring efforts are used to address flooding and storm impacts (Reguero et al 2018). Already the United States has hardened about 14% of its coastline through grey infrastructure like seawalls and jetties meant to address the storms, flooding, and coastal erosion that climate change exacerbates (Gittman et al 2015). However, some forms of coastal armoring, like seawalls, can have the adverse effect of accelerating erosion and the loss of tidal wetlands. Wetlands, as a form of natural infrastructure, also provide protection from climate change risks by reducing the force of waves and storm surges and trapping sediment (Gittman et al 2015, Reguero et al 2018. Natural coastal infrastructure projects, including wetland, barrier island, and oyster reef restoration are cost-effective and can significantly reduce damage across a wide area of coastline, compared to more localized and less cost-effective grey infrastructure projects (Reguero et al 2018).
Further, the degree of risk posed by climate change-driven coastal flooding will be partially determined by the degree of development and infrastructure on the coasts. One component of coastal infrastructure adaptation going forward will be the managed retreat of existing high-risk infrastructure assets and the application of climate-smart standards to new infrastructure projects (Siders 2019). An example would be moving coastal highways at high risk of flooding impacts inland and integrating expected climate change impacts into future highway planning.

Public health resilience
Climate change has a range of health-related impacts, including heat stress, physical injury related to extreme weather events, air and water pollution, and incidences of infectious disease (Haines andPatz 2004, Maibach et al 2008). Upgrading preventative and responsive health infrastructure in the United States, so it is prepared to adapt to the health challenge of climate change, is essential.
In terms of proactive infrastructure, nationally improved early warning infrastructure is needed to effectively identify and warn the public about the health risk of extreme weather events and new climate patterns. This includes providing advance public warning of heat waves, climate-driven changes to disease transmission zones, severe storms, and changes to seasonal health risks as a result of climate change (Haines and Patz 2004). Adaptation infrastructure might also look to proactively manage and minimize the climate change-driven movement of disease carriers-like ticks and rats-that are expected to bring disease to new areas under a changing climate (Haines and Patz 2004). Further building adaptative capacity in the healthcare system will require investing in the local, regional, and national capacity of medical facilities and their staff to identify and integrate expected and ongoing climate change threats into their work (Haines andPatz 2004, Maibach et al 2008).
The United States will also need to build out the responsive infrastructure required to directly address climate change's public health impacts, this includes cooling centers of extreme heat events and supplemental medical capacity in the case of overburdened hospitals or the need to provide emergency supplies and medical services directly in communities affected by extreme weather events, disease outbreaks, or during acute pollution episodes. Finally, climate-proofing current and future hospitals, so they are structurally as resilient as possible to the impact of climate change-worsened extreme weather events, including installation of clean backup power sources, will be one way to adapt the physical healthcare infrastructure to be resilient under a changing climate.

Barriers to deploying climate-smart infrastructure
The urgency, scale, and scope of the United States' infrastructure challenge are significant. Enactment of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022 provides substantial funding and incentives to mobilize the necessary investments in climate-smart infrastructure if these laws are effectively implemented. Sufficient practices, procedures, and policies across all levels of government will be needed to transform plans into successful physical projects.
Successful climate-smart infrastructure deployment can be defined as deployment that meets emissions reduction and adaptation needs, is understood as successful by local communities, and advances equity and justice. This means that successful climate-smart infrastructure should be deployed at the scale and pace that is sufficient to meet national emissions reduction commitments and to prevent avoidable damage from increasing climate impacts. From planning through deployment most local community members should have positive impressions of successful climate-smart infrastructure and its contributions to the area. Further, successful infrastructure deployment should be grounded in the principles of environmental and energy justice, and ideally benefit-or at a minimum does not further burden-communities that have been underserved, overburdened by pollution, and discriminated against. The principles of environmental and energy justice have been defined by Bullard et al (2011), Baker (2019), Salter et al (2018), and Reames (2016) among many others. The following sections evaluate two challenges to such successful deployment of climate-smart infrastructure.

Mobilizing and reallocating resources and spending
Building the climate-smart infrastructure discussed earlier in the paper will require a substantial public and private investment. This is both new investment and reallocation of spending to align with the realities of climate change. Research suggests that the United States can leverage investments in climate-smart infrastructure to not just avoid the costs of climate impacts now and in the future, but create jobs and build national economic competitiveness in low-carbon sectors, all in a way that can be used to advance greater domestic equity and justice (Saha and Jaeger 2020). One recent study by World Resources Institute found that not only was decarbonizing the United States economy economically feasible, but depending on fossil fuel prices, it could ultimately provide a net savings of 0.3% of United States GDP (Saha et al 2021a).
Substantial investments are already being made in reducing United States emissions and adapting to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. The Biden-Harris administration has used executive orders to revitalize and expand efforts to reduce the federal government's emissions and increase the resilience of its programs and assets in the face of climate change impacts (White House 2021a, 2021b).
Also, in 2021 the United States enacted a significant infrastructure bill, The BIL. BIL invests billions in climate-smart infrastructure priorities to reduce emissions-like technological and natural carbon removal, EV charging infrastructure, building efficiency, grid resilience, transmission-and to adapt to climate change impacts-like resilience building for wildfires and extreme weather events (McLaughlin and Bird 2021). One modeling effort suggests BIL could deliver around 71 million metric tons in emissions reductions (Jenkins et al 2022). BIL also has the potential to drive significant adaptation benefits through its more than $50 billion in resilience programming, that is already being spent on transportation system resilience, wildfire prevention, detection, and response, drought preparedness, cybersecurity for priorities like energy infrastructure, coastal risk management and more (White House 2022a). However, ultimately, how state, local, private sector, and community partners spend this investment will determine the degree to which it deploys necessary climate-smart infrastructure. For example, BIL invests hundreds of billions of dollars in transit and transportation priorities and a significant amount of that funding flows to and through states, which have flexibility in how they use these federal resources . This means states can determine how much of BIL's investment in transportation infrastructure supports climate-smart infrastructure, like bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, versus less climate-smart forms of infrastructure, like road expansions. The net effect could be either an increase or decrease in greenhouse gas emissions compared with a baseline scenario, depending on the implementation decisions that states make (Georgetown Climate Center 2021).
Finally, most recently and most importantly, in 2022 the United States enacted the IRA, which is unprecedented climate legislation that will drive national emissions reductions for the next decade. The IRA includes more than $300 billion in climate investments, and recent modeling suggests that on top of the reductions possible from BIL, the IRA could cut annual emissions in 2030 by an additional roughly 1 billion metric tons (United States Congress 2022, Jenkins et al 2022). Many of the climate provisions in the IRA are focused on expanding, enhancing, and extending climate-smart tax credits for clean energy, clean vehicles, clean industry and clean energy manufacturing, carbon removal, and building efficiency. The bill also includes direct investments in climate priorities like consumer home energy rebates, methane emissions reductions, natural climate solutions, clean energy deployment in disadvantaged communities, environmental justice, and addressing pollution (United States Congress 2022). IRA also includes billions of dollars in adaptation and resilience investments, including support for coastal resilience, resilience in public lands and national parks, drought response, tribal climate resilience, and climate resilience for the Native Hawaiian Community (United States Congress 2022).
Together IRA, BIL, and executive action represent an essential and momentous initial federal investment in climate-smart infrastructure for emissions reductions. However, further public and private spending on clean energy, clean transportation, carbon removal, natural infrastructure is likely necessary to ensure that the infrastructure needed to get on a path to net-zero emissions by 2050 is in place by the end of the decade. This is evident across infrastructure priorities when we compare the scale of the need discussed above and the amount of funding in BIL and the IRA. For example, an estimated $39 billion investment is needed for public EV charging deployment to support 100% passenger EV sales by 2035; BIL provides $7.5 billion and the IRA extension and expansion of the alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit is expected to have a budgetary impact of $1.7 billion (McKenzie and Nigro 2021, White House n.d., United States Congress 2022). The BIL makes a more than $15 billion investment in grid infrastructure, which is built upon by IRA which invests just under $2.9 billion to analyze, plan, and implement transmission projects (Saha et al 2021b, United States Congress 2022. This is a meaningful public investment, but achieving net zero is expected to require a collective public and private investment of $360 billion this decade (Larson et al 2020, Saha et al 2021b. Economic incentives in the IRA for purchasing EVs and generating zero-emissions electricity provide further impetus for rapid and significant climate-smart infrastructure build-out. Similarly, IRA and BIL made record investments into climate-smart adaptation and resilience infrastructure, but additional funding will be required to build resilience and adaptive capacity to unavoidable climate change impacts, including funding for extreme heat, drought, and wildfire response, coastal resilience, and climate resilience in public health. While there is no singular or comprehensive assessment of the expected cost of adapting United States society and infrastructure to climate change, estimates range up to tens or hundreds of billions per year annually by 2050 (Sussman et al 2013). Together, BIL and IRA invest tens of billions of dollars in adaptation, but that seems unlikely to meet the scale of public and private adaptation investment required nationally. Further, while funding in IRA and BIL could support the full spectrum of adaptation and resilience infrastructure some kinds of infrastructure, such as public health, did not receive the same dedicated climate change infrastructure investments as other priorities, like coastal resilience.
While additional funding is needed for all kinds of climate-smart infrastructure, progress to date and the immense benefits of climate-smart infrastructure investments-in terms of not just addressing climate change but job creation, public health, and economic growth-suggest such a mobilization and reallocation of investment should be possible (Saha and Jaeger 2020). However, as economic incentives increasingly align in support of climate-smart infrastructure, the rate-limiting factor is likely to be how well policies can be implemented and coordinated between federal, state, and local agencies and the private sector to facilitate rapid climate-smart infrastructure build-out.

Moving from planning to deployment
Once funded, climate-smart infrastructure projects face the challenge of rapidly planning and breaking ground in a context that-in terms of regulation and public sentiment-is better suited to maintaining the status quo than driving systems change. As Paul Sabin lays out in his book Public Citizens, the goal underpinning many of the existing laws that apply to new projects is slowing the deployment of infrastructure to protect Americans from their government (Sabin 2021, Klein 2022. This goal is premised on the idea that government ineptitude and susceptibility to private sector influence make it an insufficient steward of the land and community interest. Genuine malfeasance from the government and industry is responsible for this instinct. Existing inequity in infrastructure planning and deployment is evident; from how highways that divide and pollute low-income, Black, Latino, and indigenous communities, and other communities of color, to how hazardous waste infrastructure has been found more likely to be sited near low-income communities and communities of color, to how strip mining has impacted the public and environmental health in many rural communities (Mohai and Saha 2015, Sabin 2021, Klein 2022. Historically marginalized communities disproportionately bear the brunt of infrastructure impacts and see a disproportionally low amount of benefit.
Racist, corrupt, or thoughtless projects, justified as necessary in the name of progress, have led to a lack of trust in the government and project developers, and a regulatory system designed to try and constrain these actors. Climate-smart infrastructure build-out will need to reckon with this context, as the United States seeks to manage and curb climate change through progress on infrastructure in the decades to come. There remains considerable scholarly, political, and operational work to be done on how best to deliver just, responsible climate-smart infrastructure in a timely and economically viable manner. However, as efforts to deploy climate-smart infrastructure proceed alongside this work, they can build on a few major priorities: minimal and thoughtful impact; equitable co-development; and integrating the scale and urgency of climate change into planning and processes.

Minimal and thoughtful impact
The most effective way to avoid procedural and substantive hurdles when designing climate-smart infrastructure is to minimize its impact on people and the environment by minimizing the scale of new projects, carefully selecting the sites for infrastructure, and planning for the economic impact of projects.
Regarding scale, there is no net-zero scenario that does not require substantial new infrastructure, but fully utilizing options to reduce the need for new infrastructure will be an important consideration. For example, in the case of water infrastructure, while meeting water demand in our changing climate will require increased storage capacity, demand-side strategies can reduce the amount of increased storage needed (Perry and Praskievicz 2017). There are also tactics to minimize the impact of the transmission infrastructure needed to meet clean electricity goals. While new transmission lines are essential, they can be costly and take time to build. The use of grid-enhancing technologies, such as tools to provide real-time updates on the limits of existing transmission lines and balance over and underuse in a transmission system, can maximize the potential of existing infrastructure's ability to integrate renewables and reduce the need for some new transmission projects (DOE 2022). Further, building out high-voltage direct current transmission across the country can, itself, provide increased flexibility in locating clean electricity generation across regions (Bloom et al 2020).
Regarding site selection, projects should not just be planned around the most efficient way of achieving an economic or public goal in a vacuum, but what is the most equitable and efficient way of achieving a goal given local land use and sentiments on new infrastructure. For example, • With solar, there is considerable potential to alleviate some opposition and sense of environmental tradeoffs by strategically siting solar on unconventional sites. One study in California looked at solar energy development on buildings, salt-affected land, contaminated land, and water reservoirs in the Central Valley and found substantial potential to over-deliver on the state's energy needs by using these kinds of lands (Hoffacker et al 2017). • Building along existing infrastructure rights-of-way, such as alongside railroads and highways, can reduce new impact. A study in Minnesota found that buried high-voltage direct current transmission and fiber could be sited within existing highway rights-of-way, providing an opportunity to deliver substantial societal benefit (NGI Consulting et al 2022). • Concerns about large physical infrastructure, such as wind turbines, are often tied to their visual impact and how they change existing landscapes. These concerns can be lessened by avoiding sites of particular visual importance and selecting sites with a history of previous land use, and where the aesthetics of the infrastructure are more compatible with the existing local landscape and buildings (Petrova 2013). • Restoring degraded ecosystems as a form of green infrastructure can minimize novel impacts on nearby communities, while delivering community benefit. For example, when considering coastal adaptation, restoring coastal wetlands may be able to achieve target adaptation outcomes with more co-benefits and less new infrastructure impacts on undisturbed land or seafloor than grey infrastructure options such as levees or seawalls (Reguero et al 2018).
Site selection should always consider the existing and historic burden of infrastructure deployment in the area and on local communities. Projects capitalizing on the benefits of locations where there is already a significant infrastructure footprint-such areas with existing rights-of-way or where there is polluted land that can be rehabilitated-should ensure that they redress and do not exacerbate existing infrastructure impacts through close collaboration with local communities.
Finally, regarding economic impact, there are concerns about the economic effects of infrastructure and the possibility that it might disrupt existing land and resource uses and lower nearby property values. Siting projects where financial impacts are not an issue and where there is interest in the economic value proposition of climate-smart infrastructure can address this concern. Further, proposing and implementing programs to maximize community economic benefit can increase project support. This kind of project design should be locally tailored, based on community feedback, equitable, and not dependent on any support or engagement with the siting process. Approaches can include providing lower-cost electricity, making investments in local communities, proposing natural climate solutions that deliver local economic and health benefits, and fostering community ownership (Petrova 2013). In the case of wind energy, analysis across the United States shows that economic benefits and compensation is the strongest predictor of support for siting (Petrova 2013).

Equitable community co-development
Integrating community insight, and gaining community support, is an essential part of addressing the history of destructive infrastructure projects that resulted in community distrust and our current regulatory system. It can also determine success for any infrastructure project, climate-smart or otherwise. In the clean electricity space, one study of 53 delayed or blocked utility-scale wind, solar, and geothermal energy projects in 28 states found that, in 28% of cases, perception of inadequate consultation and participatory planning was a factor (Susskind et al 2022).
Examples of stalled climate-smart infrastructure projects that failed to successfully partner with communities are common (Aidun et al 2022). A recent case in point is Central Maine Power's New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) project. NECEC is a 145-mile transmission corridor that, if constructed, would transport hydropower from Canada to Massachusetts. Central Maine Power began permitting NECEC in 2017 and began construction in 2021, but from its beginnings, the project faced local opposition in Maine (Pied 2021, Sharp 2021a. Opposition began with, and was led by, those that used the site of the new corridor recreationally or to support tourism (Pied 2021). It grew to include thousands of diverse citizens, throughout the political spectrum, with different reasons for their opposition. Across opponents, common themes included: exclusion from the decision-making process and an opaque decision-making process; disrespect by decision-makers and Central Maine Power; outsized power in the hands of profit-motivated and untrustworthy companies, government officials, and land-holding environmental non-governmental organizations; and resentment of incurring local impacts to provide electricity outside of the state (Pied 2021). Central Maine Power did attempt to address this local opposition in several ways. They attempted community engagement, though some described it as lacking a sincere interest in community input (Pied 2021). Central Maine Power offered to provide $258 million in financial support to low-income households for EV charging, heat pumps, and more-but opponents perceived that as part of exclusive negotiations with politicians that did not involve communities (Pied 2021, Sharp 2021b. Finally, Central Maine Power, and its partners and affiliates, invested more than 60 million in supportive advocacy for the project leading up to a referendum vote. They outspent the tens of millions of dollars that opponents, including NextEra Energy, Calpine, and Vistra, invested in opposition efforts (Massoglia 2021, Sharp 2021b. Nonetheless, in November of 2021, Maine citizens voted to halt NECEC. Central Maine Power is currently challenging the validity of that vote in court (Mistler 2021, Sharp 2022. The story of NECEC presents a clear example of how a failure to effectively gain community support imperiled a climate-smart infrastructure project. Further, it demonstrates that unsuccessful community engagement in one area can have far-reaching impacts on multi-state infrastructure projects. While NECEC may serve as a cautionary tale, other projects have more successfully navigated project development with communities and operationalized climate-smart infrastructure. The Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), which began operation in 2016 and is the first offshore wind project in the U.S., provides an example (Firestone et al 2020). BIWF was proceed by state-level planning on offshore renewable electricity generation, including establishing an Ocean Special Area Management Plan and a Renewable Energy Zone in Rhode Island state waters, which included stakeholder engagement (Dwyer and Bidwell 2019). This planning process underpinned the submission and selection of developer Deepwater Wind's BIWF project. Designing and permitting BIWF included considerable engagement with the Block Island community and impacted coastal Rhode Island communities. The project process specifically included regular noticed meetings, one-on-one meetings with specific stakeholder groups, door-to-door outreach, input through regulatory processes, and hiring a local Block Island project liaison who could answer the community's day-to-day questions on the project (Dwyer and Bidwell 2019). This process did run into community engagement and development challenges, and not all participants felt the process was trustworthy or authentic (Dwyer and Bidwell 2019). For example, in some cases, Deepwater Wind lacked answers to community questions, which community members interpreted as a lack of transparency or being poorly prepared (Firestone et al 2020). Additionally, during the beginning of the process, early-stage community meetings were scheduled during the winter. Non-local staff appear to have overlooked how that timing would exclude part-time summer residents, resulting in increased distrust of the process and the perception of intentional exclusion (Dwyer and Bidwell 2019). However, the project had notable successes. Survey data from before and after the project's construction, as well as interviews, revealed that generally, the hiring of a community liaison from the impacted community had a very positive impact in terms of the accessibility of engagement and the representation of community viewpoints (Dwyer and Bidwell 2019, Firestone et al 2020). Survey data and interviews also suggest that some of the project's ultimate acceptance was grounded in building trust through engagement, with transparency and fairness being important considerations Bidwell 2019, Firestone et al 2020). A survey of Block Island residents found that almost 60% participated in some participatory action related to BIWF, and just over 82% supported the project.
While the BIWF and NECEC examples both demonstrate the role of community support and collaboration in the success of infrastructure focused on reducing emissions, it is equally important in the context of adaptation and resilience infrastructure. A review of adaptation in the United States found that one barrier to its implementation was varying cultural views and values around adaptation as a concept, as well as difficulty combining local knowledge with scientific research to implement and build capacity around adaptation (Bierbaum et al 2012). The effectiveness of adaptation and resilience infrastructure is tied to community knowledge and engagement. A failure to engage communities and integrate local knowledge and values into adaptation infrastructure has often been found to lead to maladaptation, adaptation that results in adverse outcomes and makes a community more vulnerable to climate change. Take for example coastal adaptation, coastal protection infrastructure that is not paired with robust community engagement could produce a false sense of security that leads to high-risk development in certain coastal areas or grey protection infrastructure that is implemented without an understanding of community needs and priorities could damage high priority ecosystems and accidently inhibit community resilience by undermining a system they depend on for their livelihoods and economic stability (Schipper and Lisa 2020).
These examples can inform community co-development going forward, but questions of how to engage communities in infrastructure project development remain. While work is still needed to fully understand how to deliver trusted and inclusive community engagement processes, an essential starting point is grounding engagement on existing best practice literature, particularly from community advocates. Identified best practices include investing in inclusive conditions for consultations (accessible locations, multiple and participant-informed times, childcare, wage reimbursement if appropriate, and more), grounding engagement practices in community history and experiences with previous projects, dedicating increased and consistent funding for engagement and capacity building processes, designing projects in part to be understandable and accessible for community feedback, and more (Reames 2016, Michel et al 2018, EJNCF et al 2021, Hays et al 2021. Not all community members have equitable access to community consultation processes. Overburdened groups, including women, low-income individuals, and members of rural communities, have faced significantly higher barriers to participation (Petrova 2013).
Participatory processes and community empowerment in siting climate-smart infrastructure could help secure greater community acceptance for projects. However, that outcome often depends on preexisting trust in and perceived competence of the moderators facilitating engagement (Tyler 2000, Firestone et al 2020. Equitable, diverse engagement in community consultation processes is an integral part of substantive and perceived legitimacy; any attempts to circumvent or limit community engagement will end up delegitimizing the overall effort and slowing, rather than accelerating, progress. Ensuring equitable and accessible engagement processes will require planning and investment.

Integrating the scale and urgency of climate change into planning and processes
Justification is a precursor and prerequisite for trust (Tyler 2000); as we ask communities to accept unmitigable local impacts of climate-smart infrastructure, the ability of the government to communicate how those impacts relate to the greater risks of climate change will be essential. More fully communicating and integrating the substantial impacts of climate change into decision-making around planning, siting, and permitting is a central part of reckoning with the existing approach to infrastructure in the United States. As outlined previously, the current regulatory system assumes maintenance of the status quo as the optimal outcome for communities in the face of risk, but that does not account for the immense cost of air pollution and the current and expected impacts of climate change. For example, while the transmission and generation build-out required for clean energy may have local impacts that need to be managed and reduced, the cost of our currently operating fossil fuel generation facilities is massive. One analysis of human mortality rates and temperature changes resulting from climate change finds that achieving 100% clean electricity by 2035 in the United States results in a global reduction of temperatures that would save around 1.9 million lives through 2100 (Climate Impact Lab 2022). Similarly, adaptation and resilience infrastructure to address rising temperatures, such as cooling centers, green roofs, and tree planting, would achieve additional local benefits. However, climate change is driving an increase in extreme heat events, and without intervention additional days of extreme heat have been connected to an increased loss of life in the United States (Khatana et al 2022). Planning, siting, and permitting processes that do not account for climate change, and therefore for impacts of this scale, are not truly achieving their goal of protecting communities.
The climate crisis demands a unified rethinking of how we approach and plan for infrastructure projects. Accounting for the scale and cost of the climate crisis requires starting from the understanding that the status quo is no longer sustainable or preferable to action, and adjusting practices, rules, and procedures accordingly (McGuire 2018). There are many examples of how existing policies fail to account for the changes demanded by the climate crisis. For example, in the case of implementing coastal climate change adaptation projects, longstanding histories of, and incentives for, coastal development have been a significant barrier. Shifting those incentives and moving away from the status quo approach to growth on the United States coasts will be required to meaningfully implement adaptation in those regions. Another example of misaligned policy, a review of adaptation action under the National Park Service and the United States Forest Service found that internal barriers-such as unclear guidance, mandates, rules and procedures-were a leading constraint on implementation (Jantarasami et al 2010). Both within federal agencies, and across actors and levels of government, providing clarity regarding the need, priority, and purpose of climate-smart infrastructure will be important to driving deployment.
One way to operationalize this realignment of assumptions for infrastructure to reduce emissions is to conduct participatory planning for clean electricity build-out that is grounded in the premise that a certain amount of wind, solar, or transmission will be needed in a particular region. Then, based on that process, develop a build-out plan that identifies the best locations for this infrastructure. This approach changes the question from 'will this be built' to 'where will this be built.' It moves the process from the individual scale to a regional and national scale, which is more aligned with the scale of the climate crisis. Fragmented state and local authority over geographically far-reaching regional and national scale projects is one factor that has delayed climate infrastructure deployment to date. Transmission is a good example of this challenge. Most of the authority over siting transmission projects rests with states, which has proven a hindrance to building regional transmission and prioritizing regional and national transmission needs when there has been local or state opposition to siting transmission in specific areas (Klass and Wilson 2012). This limited federal authority to site and permit transmission projects is one reason it can be easier to site interstate fossil fuel pipelines than transmission lines. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the primary siting authority for interstate pipelines, while transmission lines currently have to undergo a state-by-state permitting process (Klass and Wilson 2012). Addressing this barrier to climate-smart infrastructure deployment requires both standardizing national, regional, state, and local approaches to infrastructure permitting, as well as elevating clean energy build-out planning to the regional and national level. Ultimately, deploying the necessary climate-smart infrastructure will require the concerted effort of decision-makers at multiple levels of government and in various agencies and organizations, but grounding planning in national needs downscaled to the regional level would encourage alignment with the scale of the climate crisis and can assist with minimizing delays in infrastructure deployment related to fragmented authority and differing priorities and policies at different levels of governance. One example of climate-smart planning is the work FERC is currently guiding. In April 2022, FERC proposed a new rule that would require transmission providers to conduct more forward-looking planning and needs assessments to accommodate possible future changes in energy sources, energy demand, fuel costs, extreme weather, and plant retirements. The rule would also require transmission providers to identify how best to meet transmission needs, while working with relevant state actors in the region to determine how to allocate costs associated with the needed build-out identified in the long-term planning (Harder 2022, FERC 2022a. However, for this kind of planning to be effective, the systems and processes that regulate realizing that plan through permitting and siting must also evolve to address the climate challenge. The federal government is already attempting these changes on an ad hoc basis. To provide another example from FERC, in June of 2022 they followed up their proposed rule on long-term planning with a new proposed rule on process reforms that would help expedite getting new electricity generators connected to the grid. The rule would seek to address an existing backlog of interconnection requests through larger clustered interconnection studies, applying stricter study deadlines to transmission providers while simplifying the study process, reforms to facilitate multiple energy resources using a single interconnection point, and new modeling and performance requirements for certain facilities related to system reliability (Harder 2022, FERC 2022b. This rule attempts to make process adjustments that account for the shift from a status quo volume of new infrastructure projects to the scale of projects that reaching the United States' clean electricity goals requires. Another proposed reform, that would require action by Congress, is empowering the federal government to preempt state siting authority for interstate transmission lines, as has been done for other forms of infrastructure like fossil fuel pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals (Klass and Wilson 2012).
New rules around wind turbines provide another good example, and one that typifies some of the challenges around balancing the near-term impacts of infrastructure deployment with the long-term impacts of climate change. Wind turbines can cause animal collisions and result in negative biodiversity impacts, but climate change poses a serious global extinction risk for an increasing fraction of species as temperatures rise (Allison et al 2014). The federal government is taking steps to manage the full range of biodiversity risks in a way that addresses their scale. For instance, the Fish and Wildlife Service is working to reduce the impacts of wind energy on the eagle population by providing guidelines for developing eagle conservation plans and continuing to enforce the prohibition against incidentally 'taking'-including wounding or killing-certain eagle species without a permit (Allison et al 2014, Husch Blackwell et al 2022. At the same time, the Service is reforming its incidental take permitting process to account for the challenges the wind industry has faced in securing those permits to operate wind farms lawfully. In 2013 the Service extended the duration of qualifying incidental take permits for recurring and unavoidable eagle taking to 30 years, to better align with the wind industry timeline (Allison et al 2014). More recently, in the fall of 2021, the Service issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to solicit feedback on how to make the permitting process simpler and more expeditious. The notice foreshadowed some improvements under consideration, such as pooling post-construction monitoring among developers and a nationwide permitting program for minimal impact projects (Husch Blackwell et al 2022). Following this notice period, the Service is expected to release a proposed rule in September 2022 (DOI 2022).
Targeted rulemaking efforts, such as those pursued by the Fish and Wildlife Service and FERC, can address specific instances where an existing regulation no longer sufficiently meets its objective because it does not account for the imperative of climate action. In the Fish and Wildlife Service case, targeted rulemaking is aligning a system predisposed against the risk to certain eagle species of issuing permits with the needs of the wind energy infrastructure deployment to address the existential threat of climate change. However, rulemaking efforts targeted at the regulations that govern all federal permitting and siting would be more systematic and encompassing. Specifically, integrating climate considerations into National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) might more effectively drive the urgently needed planning, permitting, and siting shift in how the federal government approaches climate-smart infrastructure.
NEPA is the statute that requires federally funded projects to evaluate their impact on the environment (Hart and Tsang 2021b). NEPA reflects the idea that a more transparent process produces better outcomes. The statute does not require certain outcomes but requires an assessment of impacts that can inform project decisions; its purpose is to hold the government accountable through transparency (Kraft 2010, Scott et al 2020. NEPA is the most litigated federal environmental statute (Hart and Tsang 2021b). According to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, there have been more than 1400 United States legal cases related to climate change; 316 of those cases (the third largest set of cases) are NEPA-related. NEPA cases run the gamut from challenging the approval of offshore wind to objecting to a moratorium on oil and gas leasing (Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP n.d.). NEPA generally reflects the preference for status quo that defines infrastructure planning, siting, and permitting processes in the United States.
However, while NEPA litigation is often used to block projects, it has the flexibility to support climate action. A study of climate change adaptation in United States National Parks and Forests did not identify existing federal law as a particular constraint on adaptation and resilience programming and found that agency staff and managers saw process laws, like NEPA, as more often enabling adaptation than limiting it, compared to more prescriptive laws (Jantarasami et al 2010). Research has suggested that improving the integration of climate considerations in NEPA assessments, using existing information and methods, would be aligned with judicial trends and more fully meet NEPA's mandate (Hein and Jacewicz 2020). Currently, NEPA does not directly require integrating climate considerations, but it is encouraged through existing CEQ guidance. CEQ guidance on the inclusion of climate considerations in NEPA-related assessments has changed with administrations (Ulibarri and Han 2022). Further, NEPA can be used to challenge infrastructure that would increase reliance on fossil fuels. The United Auto Workers and the Natural Resources Defense Council, for example, are using NEPA to challenge and possibly change the United States Postal Service's decision to invest in fossil-fueled-power vehicles. In this case, NEPA provides an opportunity to reshape a decision that would perpetuate, for years, air and climate pollution from postal fleets that operate in communities across the country (United Auto Workers 2022).
However, we have also seen NEPA used in a way that complicates and stalls even seemingly low-impact climate-smart infrastructure. Legislators and regulators could address this issue by changing how NEPA applies to climate-smart infrastructure projects. Legislation and regulations can augment the application of NEPA to streamline processes related to energy infrastructure. Irma Russell describes this in her work on NEPA and addressing climate change, pointing out how the NEPA process has been streamlined before for certain energy sources. The Oil Shale, Tar Sands, and Other Strategic Unconventional Fuels Act of 2005 provides for cumulative reviews that cover multiple land tracts for the development of those specific fuels, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations have created categorical exclusion from environmental assessments and impact statements for certain activities associated with nuclear plants (Russell 2009). NEPA exemptions are also already codified for emergency response and disaster relief; policies that expedite proactive, adaptive infrastructure could be aligned with that exemption and avoid some post-disaster infrastructure needs (Luther 2017). Congress could enshrine environmental justice considerations in the NEPA process to integrate existing efforts and guidance on addressing equity in project siting, as a way of ensuring that efforts to expedite decarbonization projects do not negatively impact, and ideally positively impact, Black, Latino, and indigenous households, and other households of color (Hart and Tsang 2021a). It could be helpful to consider appropriate NEPA streamlining that would support urgent climate-smart infrastructure deployment without undermining the efficacy of the process, transparency, or community engagement (Russell 2009).
Conversations about practically integrating climate urgency into permitting and siting processes are ongoing in the United States. The Biden-Harris administration has released a new Permitting Action Plan to accelerate infrastructure projects, specifically mentioning clean energy (The White House 2022b). Further, new Department of Interior processes for early screening, engagement, and prioritization of wind and solar projects are meant to get the most technically and financially feasible and least naturally and culturally concerning projects up and running as soon as possible (Bureau of Land Management 2022). Additionally, as a part of negotiations with Senator Joe Manchin around the IRA, President Biden and House and Senate Democratic leadership agreed to pursue permitting reform legislation to address project delays related to permitting reviews, litigation, and water quality certifications, while seeking to prioritize and expedite specific projects and types of projects (Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 2022). To date, efforts to pass that legislation have been unsuccessful, but this issue will receive continued attention during the 118th Congress. At the state level, California enacted legislation in 2022 setting deadlines and designating a single lead agency for permitting decisions on clean energy projects (California Legislative Information 2022).
Outside of government, a group of experts convened by the Aspen Institute has proposed additional measures to streamline siting and permitting processes for decarbonization-focused infrastructure. They recommend legislatively pre-qualifying projects and locations associated with large emissions reductions and well-understood impacts, accelerated approval for decarbonization projects with novel or significant impacts, required accelerated adjudication timelines to avoid protracted litigation, and requiring state or local governments using federal funding to implement the same processes for expedited decarbonization projects (The Aspen Institute Energy & Environment Program 2021).

Conclusions
Climate change threatens to transform our society and the structures that underpin it if we fail to act, but climate action itself will require transformation. This is evident in the context of infrastructure in the United States. As changing climate conditions threaten aging infrastructure, which is insufficient for the task of driving national emissions to net-zero by 2050, the deployment of diverse kinds of climate-smart infrastructure is needed to reduce and abate emissions and adapt to unavoidable climate impacts.
The feasibility of achieving this kind of climate-smart infrastructure deployment will depend on the effective implementation of recent legislation intended to expedite this foundational component of the country's net-zero goal. The ability of policymakers, advocates, the private sector, researchers, and communities to overcome challenges to building climate-smart infrastructure at pace and scale will define the capacity of the United States to avert the most catastrophic climate impacts. Developing an effective, equitable, and action-oriented approach to building climate-smart infrastructure is essential to deliver for communities and the global good. By summarizing the need for climate-smart infrastructure, barriers to its deployment, and practical solutions to these barriers, this topical review aims to inform policy discussions needed to equitably and quickly deploy infrastructure that can address the climate crisis and its impacts. The review emphasizes the importance of developing policies, procedures, and practices that encourage lower-impact options for climate-smart infrastructure, support equitable community co-development of climate-smart infrastructure projects, and integrate a proactive understanding of the scale and urgency of infrastructure deployment into existing decision-making structures and processes. Further, this review has identified important areas of future study. Opportunities for future research include assessments of the scale of adaptation and resilience infrastructure needs, additional studies of how to minimize infrastructure impacts for specific kinds of projects, proven methods for delivering community benefits from large-scale infrastructure like transmission, solutions for integrating the urgency of climate-smart infrastructure not just at the federal level but across levels of governance, and more. Just as there is urgency in deploying climate-smart infrastructure, there is urgency in growing our understanding of what it means to deploy that infrastructure successfully and how that can be done in a manner that meets the scale of the climate crisis and charts a new path forward towards equitable and just infrastructure in the United States.