Six FCRA Criteria for Federally Involved Projects

By John Ryan

Stakeholders of the U.S. EPA WIFIA loan program will recall that the program ran into a serious-sounding issue about correct budgeting a few years ago. The issue arises when a WIFIA loan is made to an infrastructure project that has some degree of federal involvement. Federal activities cannot receive the same Federal Credit Reform Act (FCRA) budgetary treatment that WIFIA invariably uses for its loans.  How was the program ensuring that loans for federal activities were excluded from its FCRA-based budget?

Since this question didn’t have a clear answer at the time, Congress in late 2019 instructed WIFIA, jointly with OMB and Treasury, to develop classification criteria to distinguish loans that could receive FCRA treatment and those that could not, due to federal involvement in the project being financed. Non-FCRA WIFIA loans, regardless of being completely eligible in every other way, would become ineligible due to the application of the criteria.