What each ledger funds, on what horizon, with what protection
Funds the legacy backlog the country already owes itself — bridges, water, federal courthouses, transit state-of-good-repair, the grid for the carbon transition, trauma networks, pandemic-prep capacity. Annual appropriation against a statutory floor that the Debt Sunset Governor cannot breach without supermajority.
Funds the new hazards the country is generating but has not yet absorbed — sea-rise hardening, wildfire fuel breaks driven by climate-shift fire regimes, heat infrastructure for federal facilities and workers, agricultural adaptation, tail-risk reserves for civilization-scale events. Ring-fenced from the General Fund; allocated by the Expert Panel on Climate Resilience (EPCR) under era-defined annual draws.
Different obligations, different time horizons, different protections
| General Fund Infrastructure | Climate Adaptation Trust | |
|---|---|---|
| What it funds | The legacy backlog the country already owes itself | New hazards the country is generating but has not absorbed |
| Time horizon | 25-year buildout, then maintenance | 200-year intergenerational |
| Trigger | Existing failure / deferred maintenance / capacity ceiling | Projected hazard onset (sea-rise, fire, heat, drought) |
| Examples | Brent Spence Bridge; Hudson Tunnel; lead service lines | Norfolk seawall; LANL fuel break; Mississippi salinity barrier |
| ROI test | Yes — with fix-it-first and Civilization-Premium overrides | Yes — strict BCR + hazard-onset gate |
| Statutory protection | Floor at 0.45% GDP (Years 1–25); Debt Sunset Governor cannot breach without supermajority | Ring-fenced from General Fund appropriation; EPCR allocates |
The same asset can appear on either ledger
A grid-hardening project funded for Black-Sky / EMP resilience is a Civilization-Premium item on the General Fund. The same hardware funded for adaptation to sea-level-driven substation flooding is a Climate Trust item. The cause of the work determines the ledger. EPCR and the General Fund infrastructure board issue a joint allocation memo annually so no project draws from both ledgers for the same incremental cost.
Four eras: Civilization Premium ramp → backlog buildout → tail completion → maintenance
Front-load grid + trauma + pandemic-prep. Establish the Civilization Premium that makes the wealth-tax architecture defensible.
Major bridges, water, federal-courthouse and VA-hospital backlog clearance. Hudson Tunnel. NEC catenary. NYC subway SOGR.
Last 20% of backlog (the long-tail expensive cases). Transit final-mile. Rural broadband completion.
Post-backlog steady-state. Preservation across all categories at the steady-state replacement rate.
Five eras spanning 2030–2229. Annual draws scale with hazard onset.
Capacity-build EPCR. Capture cheap wins. Map federal-asset risk. Establish governance that survives 200 years.
Major hardening of identified-risk public assets. Protect what is here before the next-magnitude event.
Peak adaptation buildout coincides with peak hazard onset. Coastal hardening, agricultural transition, grid reorganization.
1.5–3m sea-rise scenarios in mid-range projection. Federal-asset relocations. Inland water reorganization. Heat infrastructure scaled to occupied-zone shifts.
Maintain prior buildout. Preserve principal against post-2229 regime nobody alive today can forecast. Tail-risk reserve grows.
GF_INFRASTRUCTURE_25YR_SCHEDULE.md + CLIMATE_TRUST_200YR_SCHEDULE.md (Bill, 06 May 2026). All numerics on this page read from lib/config.ts.