Federal Managers Association

In the News

• Bipartisan Deal Creates Special Hiring, Pay Authorities for New Agency to Launch Infrastructure Projects - August 3, 2021

• Agency would mirror organizations within the departments of Defense and Energy.

  Eric Katz, Government Executive

  The bipartisan infrastructure package agreed to over the weekend would create a new agency in the Transportation Department to fund innovative projects, with lawmakers providing the organization free reign to hire without restrictions and to pay higher salaries than those of most civil service jobs.

  The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, negotiated in recent months by a bipartisan group of 10 senators and the White House, would launch the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure to provide grants to universities, companies and research foundations working on early-stage projects. The funds would go toward projects the private sector would be unlikely to take on without assistance due to “technical and financial uncertainty.” Research conducted with the grants would be aimed at reducing costs of the construction and maintenance of roads, bridges and mass transit, lowering the environmental impacts of related projects and boosting their resiliency to physical and cyber threats.

  To read the full story, click here.

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