Ideas Floated To Improve TIFIA Loan Program
Date Posted: July 18, 2017
Posted In: Ideas, News,
From Engineering News-Record: As the Trump administration continues to work on its promised $1-trillion infrastructure investment plan, it is expected to recommend increasing funds for the long-standing federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program, which provides low-interest loans to help finance a range of transportation projects.
TIFIA loan recipients testifying at a recent Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the program said the loans have been important in financing their projects. But they see shortcomings in TIFIA and have recommended steps that they say will broaden its appeal and make it run more smoothly. (View webcast of hearing.)
At the committee’s July 12 hearing, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, its ranking Democrat, said, “TIFIA is a critical component of a funding package for large projects that helps to leverage non-federal funding, including state, local, and private dollars.”
Carper observed that since TIFIA was established in 1998, DOT has approved loans for just 64 projects. He called for making TIFIA assistance available to “a wider range of projects,” including small ones. The 2015 FAST Act expanded TIFIA eligibility to projects as small as $10 million, but Carper said no such projects have received loans so far.
Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said, “Solutions to address and pay for fixing our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges are not ‘one-size-fits-all.’ ”
He told reporters after the hearing, “Some of these [public-private] partnerships worked well in large metropolitan areas but don’t apply to rural America.” Rural areas thus need specific funding, he said.