This seems like an interesting project, but it’s entirely within one state; shouldn’t the state be funding it? What makes this a good program for federal support?
For example, my city is trying to build a bridge. There's a particular federal program for this (which will probably get killed by Trump), so the city applied for funding and now it's their job to build the bridge.
Pork is good. Pork helps grease the wheels of government, it helps things pass and helps facilitate compromise.
If it's not worth funding locally, it's not worth funding federally.
In fact, that's how the interstates work too - the state transportation agencies apply for highway funding from the federal government and then manage the projects.
Although I'm not really sold on even the approach you describe - it seems like it's just a way to funnel taxes from local people -> federal -> back to local.
Skip the middleman?
California tax payers support West Virginia infrastructure.
Inevitably some states are wealthier than others, the federal government acts as a balancer of this. This can improve outcomes in poorer states (education, building up new industries, local economies etc).
Ideally, it also provides a counter balance for changing economies, where there are inevitably winners and losers. Many industries are geographic centered, and having the ability to adjust for acute downsides in one area benefits the whole country overall in the long-term.
That being said, the specifics of individual programs are up to debate in Congress (it's their job).
The F-35 jet program accounts for about 27% of Lockheed's revenue
Lockheed financials: 2024 net sales $71.0 billion. Recorded pre-tax losses of $2.0 billion associated with classified programs
Returned $6.8 billion of cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases in 2024
Total Assets @Q1 54.96B
$110.94 B Marketcap
Nearly 80% of the $46 billion in revenue in 2014 was generated from purchases by the US government
Total foreign ownership of US companies is about 40% (I wonder if total US ownership of foreign companies exceeds foreign ownership of US companies?)
Total costs (e.g. externalities, political) and benefits (e.g. security, influence) are harder to guess at.
The US political system puts a huge amount of pressure on allies to buy US armaments. The US military industrial capitalism is complex, and has massive political backing. Christmas lights sell missiles. I also wonder how much of the F-35 profitability comes from a Gillette/SaaS/HP financial model? Wars destroy capital goods, which is great if you're selling them.
Wickard v. Filburn, for instance, upheld in 1942 that the federal government could use the Commerce Clause to regulate even a single farmer's output, on the basis that its impact on pricing, viewed in the aggregate, could affect interstate commerce: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
And in this Rhode Island situation, Congress did indeed authorize this exact type of highly-localized program: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/7438
If the federal government wants to use its resources to reduce food waste, in service of a nationwide fiscal policy to allow household funds that would otherwise go towards food waste to re-enter the economy, that's arguably largely within its purview. Because there's no national infrastructure or standards, action has to begin locally, if this is indeed the goal.
This interstate commercial framing, in fact, was at the center of the first Trump administration's food waste initiatives, which laid the groundwork for this program: https://www.wastedive.com/news/trump-administration-unveils-...
> “In one sense, this is a problem derived from America’s incredible achievements in agriculture and technology,” said [Trump's] EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler at an April 9 [2019] event, going on to recount a story about former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s surprise when he saw the bounty of a Texas grocery store in 1989. “Together, we can promote American prosperity and turn wasted food into solutions that can feed America’s communities, fuel our economy and maximize our resources.”
Whether or not specific pilot programs like the one mentioned in OP are the optimal way to implement that goal, of course, is a different question entirely. But at least they were trying to start somewhere.
(Not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)