President Joe Biden has centered his legislative agenda on many types of infrastructure spending. Consequently, America’s water utilities infrastructure is undergoing a makeover. For example, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA , allotted $15 billion to replace lead service lines. “Up to 10 million American households connect to water through lead pipes and service lines,” the White House said . “Children, toddlers, and teenagers in 400,000 schools and child care facilities are at risk of exposure to lead in their water.”

Notwithstanding the prudential and constitutional questions raised by the federal government, rather than state or local authorities, spearheading and funding such local-level infrastructure projects, America’s utilities networks surely require many improvements. Besides the lead-related health risks, significant portions of water infrastructure are simply geriatric. Policymakers can carry out needed improvements deftly or ineptly. And we know that missteps will be paid for by taxpayers.

To economize funds in either locally or federally funded projects, localities should employ open-procurement processes, which infuse competition into the monopolism inherent in government-owned infrastructure. For example, localities must choose between various pipe materials, such as iron and polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. Research shows that PVC withstands corrosion far better than its competition, thereby saving considerable taxpayer money that would otherwise fund comparatively frequent repairs or replacements.

Nonetheless, open procurement rightfully favors no individual material or technology. As a report from the National Taxpayers Union argues, “The issue at hand is not really the selection of one pipe over another, but the ability for a utility to take advantage of all materials, processes, technologies, and products that create the most cost-effective solution while meeting sustainable performance levels.” Any successes PVC has realized in open-procurement processes stem from its superior usefulness, not cronyism.

“In fact, every pipe has its best use, but no single pipe is the best fit in every situation,” the report continues, adding, “Open competition only, not accusations, will reach the objectives of elected officials, ratepayers, and developers concerned with the rising costs of infrastructure replacement capital programs.”

But even the finest local policymaking can fall victim to ill-conceived federal red tape. Washington shackles many federally funded infrastructure programs with such regulations as Buy American requirements , Davis Bacon wage floors , and other extraneous demands . These mandates raise project costs, diverting scarce funding from the actual infrastructure to regulatory compliance.

Indeed, the Biden administration has made clear its intent to morph pipe replacement into a jobs program. It has, moreover, prioritized union labor . To implement a “technical assistance hub” initiative, the administration pledged to “leverag[e] union expertise,” “collaborate with labor unions to accelerate the replacement of lead pipes,” “leverage existing union training centers,” and seek to “create good paying union jobs.”

Besides its manifest unfairness to workers who prefer to negotiate personally with prospective employers, such union favoritism almost invariably inflates costs and renders projects less impactful. In sum, although couched in high-minded, putatively pro-working-class rhetoric, federal programs that mandate artificially high wages that exceed market rates differ little from transfer payments and other government benefits programs.

Biden and Democrats who advocate these policies deny unflappably the unavoidable opportunity costs of artificial union favoritism, protectionism, and other such restrictions. Every dollar siphoned from an infrastructure project’s budget to fund cushy union contracts, source expensive, domestically produced materials, or “free” employee child care can no longer fund the actual infrastructure in question. Such prodigality could delay the replacement of America’s water infrastructure, leaving some people exposed to lead piping for far longer than necessary.

As economist Thomas Sowell wrote , “Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.” Economic trade-offs exist despite politicians’ fervent disbelief in them.

Policymakers have a duty to spend their constituents’ tax dollars frugally and prudently. This requires them to make maximal use of competition and eschew the temptation to pilfer infrastructure dollars to fund social policy.

David B. McGarry is a policy analyst at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.