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Infrastructure Bullet Points: Trump’s Plan

2/12/2018

President Trump released his infrastructure budget plan today and it looks to significantly reduce federal funding for state and local government infrastructure projects.  The proposal states that new projects would only be eligible to receive incentives up to 20% of the total cost of the project.  The other 80% would be the state’s responsibility.  On top of that, no individual state would be able to receive more than 10% of the total incentive budget.  

Here is a look at how much money is projected for each area and some of the highlights of where the money would go.

Incentives:

  • $100 billion
  • Application process is weighted
    • the dollar value of the project or program of projects (weighted at 10
      percent);
    • evidence supporting how the applicant will secure and commit new, nonFederal
      revenue to create sustainable, long-term funding for infrastructure
      investments (weighted at 50 percent);
    • evidence supporting how the applicant will secure and commit new, nonFederal
      revenue for operations, maintenance and rehabilitation (weighted
      at 20 percent);
    • updates to procurement policies and project delivery approaches to improve
      efficiency in project delivery and operations (weighted at 10 percent);
    • plans to incorporate new and evolving technologies (weighted at 5 percent);
      and
    • evidence supporting how the project will spur economic and social returns
      on investment (weighted at 5 percent).
  • An incentive grant could not exceed 20 percent of new revenue
  • Any individual State could not receive more than 10 percent of the total amount
    available under the Incentives Program

Rural Infrastructure Program

  • $50 billion
  • Eligible areas:  Transportation (roads, airports, bridges, rail, public transit, maritime/inland waterway ports), broadband, water and waste, power and electric, water resources (flood risk, etc)
  • 80% of total funding given to state governors who get discretion on distribution 
  • 20% of funding reserved for grants
  • Distributed as block grants to state
  • Would also give designated funding to US territories

Transformative Projects

  • $20 billion
  • “The Transformative Projects Program would fundamentally transform the way
    infrastructure is delivered or operated. They would be ambitious, exploratory,
    and ground-breaking project ideas that have significantly more risk than
    standard infrastructure projects, but offer a much larger reward profile. “
  • “To optimize the return on taxpayer investment, funding under this program
    could be used for—

    • up to 30 percent of eligible costs under the demonstration track;
    • up to 50 percent of eligible costs under the project planning track; and
    • up to 80 percent of eligible costs under the capital construction track.”

Infrastructure Financing

  • $20 billion
  • $14 billion would help existing large-scale projects, expand existing credit programs
  • $6 billion would go to broadening use of Private Activity Bonds

Public Lands Infrastructure

  • Would establish Interior Maintenance Fund within the Department of the Interior
  • Would use revenue ‘due and payable to the United States from mineral and energy development on Federal lands and waters.”
  • Notes $11.3 billion backlog for National Parks infrastructure and $1.3 billion backlog for Fish and Wildlife service

Disposition of Federal Real Property

  • Aims to clarify disposal and sale of federal assets and aims to simplify the process
    • want to be able to take assets no longer needed by a Federal Agency to market
    • change allocation of General Services Administration funds and non-GSA funds

Federal Capital Financing Fund

  • Establish a Federal capital financing fund similar to private companies and state governments
  • would establish a “mandatory revolving fund to finance purchases of federally owned civilian real property. Of the total appropriation, $10 billion would be made available to capitalize the revolving fund.”

 

These are all just a portion of the full plan released today by President Trump.  This plan is still simply that, a plan, and has not been voted on by the Senate.