Follow the Money

The document describes a spatial and recipient-based analysis of federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) funding in California from October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2023. It compares two environmental justice screening tools—the federal Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) and California's SB 535—to identify disadvantaged communities. The analysis focuses on non-transportation grants, as transportation spending accounted for over 88 percent of the total obligated spending ($16.07 billion) and is tracked separately by the state. The authors highlight significant data limitations in USASpending.gov, including agency non-reporting and inaccuracies in 'place of performance' fields, which may hinder the tracking of Justice40 goals.

• The analysis suggests that federal infrastructure investments in California may not be meeting the goals of the Justice40 Initiative, which aims to benefit communities that are "historically underserved, underinvested in, and overburdened by pollution."
• There is a significant discrepancy in how disadvantaged communities are identified depending on the tool used: CEJST 1.0 identifies 3,081 census tracts covering 37.9% of the state population, while SB 535 identifies 2,310 tracts covering 28.7% of the population.
• Transportation funding dominates BIL spending in California, representing more than 88 percent of the total obligated spending in the study's dataset, totaling $16.07 billion.
• Relying solely on spatial analysis would have underestimated the funding reaching Justice40 goals; 40 awards to Tribal Recipients totaling $43.41 million would have been missed without accounting for recipient type.
• The reliability of tracking federal spending is compromised by systemic issues in USASpending.gov, including the fact that at least 49 agencies failed to report data for FY 2022 and some agencies, such as the EPA, significantly underreported BIL outlays.
• The authors argue that the United States requires a "transparent, unified Justice40 tracking system" that incorporates state-agency allocation decisions to ensure federal spending is equitable.

APA

Fencl, A., Rempel, J., Klein, G., Kyn, M., Mitchell, R., & Yao, A. (2024). Follow the Money. Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/Follow-the-Money-Technical-Appendix.pdf

Chicago

Fencl, Amanda, Jenny Rempel, Georgia Klein, Mo Kyn, Ryder Mitchell, and Allyson Yao. Follow the Money. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2024. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/Follow-the-Money-Technical-Appendix.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Fencl |first1=Amanda |last2=Rempel |first2=Jenny |last3=Klein |first3=Georgia |last4=Kyn |first4=Mo |last5=Mitchell |first5=Ryder |last6=Yao |first6=Allyson |title=Follow the Money |publisher=Union of Concerned Scientists |date=June 2024 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/Follow-the-Money-Technical-Appendix.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{fencl2024follow, author = {Fencl, Amanda and Rempel, Jenny and Klein, Georgia and Kyn, Mo and Mitchell, Ryder and Yao, Allyson}, title = {{Follow the Money}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2024}, month = jun, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/Follow-the-Money-Technical-Appendix.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }