1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Local Infrastructure Funding & Technical Assistance Act or the LIFT Act . 2. Findings; purpose (a) Findings Congress finds that— (1) infrastructure systems in the United States are in a period of significant disrepair and are increasingly vulnerable due to climate change; (2) aging infrastructure, new technologies, increasing complexity, and increasing incidents of severe weather due to climate change pose new challenges to the resilience of those infrastructure systems; (3) the climate resilience challenge is most acute in environmental justice communities in the United States, which face a chronic underinvestment in infrastructure systems and require restorative investments to rebuild with equity; (4) experts have determined that predevelopment funding at the local and project levels is the critical gap in accelerating efforts of the Federal Government— (A) to support climate-resilient infrastructure systems and regional economies; and (B) to create a steady stream of shovel-worthy and well-maintained community projects; (5) economic analyses have determined that existing Federal and State predevelopment programs generate as much as $16 to $20 in economic activity for every $1 of public funds expended; (6) studies demonstrate that the development of stronger lifecycle infrastructure methods by State and local project sponsors will likely help local governments better leverage current and future Federal taxpayer investment in public infrastructure through partnerships with impact investors; (7) well-managed and resilient regional, State, and local infrastructure assets will lower future Federal taxpayer costs for recovery and restoration efforts