This new user guide is intended to support companies in developing strong Community Benefit Plans (CBPs) and ultimately help ensure that implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act results in transformative projects that reduce pollution, create good union jobs, and deliver real benefits for communities. It includes step-by-step guidance and resources to help companies navigate the creation of comprehensive Community Benefit Plans. Some of the funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act are contingent on demonstrating a commitment to creating good jobs and career pathways for a diverse pool of workers, as well as long-term economic, social, environmental, and health benefits for communities through the CBP construct.

The guide includes more than 100 resources on how companies can put together strong plans that:

• Engage community and labor by defining the impacted community; identifying relevant labor unions; engaging with high-road workforce development partners; reaching out to the stakeholders; and negotiating legally binding agreements.
• Invest in the U.S. workforce by committing to provide skills training and quality jobs that pay well and provide good benefits; avoiding worker misclassification; creating healthy, safe, and secure working conditions; and encouraging worker empowerment and representation through organizing and collective bargaining.
• Advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) by establishing recruitment, hiring, contracting, and workplace practices that will share prosperity broadly and ensuring that the use of legally binding agreements addresses the DEIA concerns of the community.
• Implement Justice40 to determine how the project will improve the environmental and public health conditions in disadvantaged communities (DAC). The White House describes DACs as overburdened and underserved according to census tract data on income, education, health, environmental threats, and other economic and environmental factors. Justice40 requires at least 40% of benefits from federal investments go to DACs.