America’s Marine Highway Program (AMHP) is getting four major projects with its $25 million in funding from President Joseph R. Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Maritime Administration (MARA) announced this week.

MARAD released information on the availability of the grant funding in March, calling the $25 million investment "the largest single appropriation of funding ever provided to the AMHP." The funds will support a new Marine Highway Route, two new Marine Highway Projects and one Project Designation Extension, MARAD announced April 19.

"Put simply, President Biden is leading the largest-ever federal investment in modernizing our country's ports—and our domestic coastwise services—and improving both our supply chains and the lives of Americans who depend on them," Lucinda Lessley, acting Maritime Administrator, said in the report. "This is truly an extraordinary moment."

AMHP projects are designed to alleviate the strain on land-based supply chains by creating more navigable waterways for moving goods throughout the U.S., DOT states in the report. By providing efficient new transportation alternatives, the projects can increase the capacity of land transportation systems; by working with public and private entities, AMHP is creating U.S. jobs, according to the DOT.

States that are to receive the projects are Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, California, and Oregon, the DOT reports.

AMHP has recognized 54 marine highway projects (MHP) since its launch in 2014. The DOT defines a MHP as "a planned service, or expansion of an existing service, on a designated Marine Highway Route (MHR). A MHR is a navigable waterway, capable of transporting freight, located in the United States or its territories." Since 2010, 29 MHRs have been designated by the DOT. 

“Investments in the America’s Marine Highway Program help us move more goods more quickly and more efficiently to the American people," U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said in the report, "supporting our supply chains even while they continue to come under pressure from pandemic-driven disruptions,”