Federal grants and loans under new infrastructure funding laws will favor applicants with strategies to retain and attract skilled workers for “high-quality jobs," a move observers say is timed with escalating auto industry labor battles.  

Rebuilding the walls, which date to the late 1800s and early 1900s, would better protect areas along the Potomac River and Tidal Basin against water-level rise and storm surge.

The NEX South Project, intended to ease traffic congestion, includes design and construction of approximately four miles of elevated lanes. 

The agency picked 273 projects to share in the grants, which are not generally greater than $50 million.

The carrier said it is working with private rail developer Texas Central Partners to seek federal funds to further determine viability of reviving the stalled project.

Dynamic Group and EvCo Development will each build a section of the planned 17.5-mile West Shore Lake Pontchartrain levee system. 

The firms will plan the replacement or rehabilitation of nearly 100 bridges and other structures along a 6-mile stretch of Chicago's south side where more than 100 trans from six rail lines meet daily.

But the megaproject's current chances of successful delivery was rated "unachievable" by the government's Infrastructure and Projects Authority in its recent annual review.