Post Tagged with: "John Ryan"

Is WIFIA’s Interest Rate Reset Feature at Risk?

Is WIFIA’s Interest Rate Reset Feature at Risk?

Public Utility Finance, Water Finance January 8, 2026 at 11:15 am

By John Ryan In response to the Trump administration’s slowdown of loan processing at the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program, four water advocacy groups sent a letter to EPA Administrator Zeldin in October last year asking for normal processing to resume. InRead More

Explaining the Decline in WIFIA Loan Volume: Part 2

Explaining the Decline in WIFIA Loan Volume: Part 2

Commentary, Public Utility Finance, Water Finance December 8, 2025 at 11:35 am

By John Ryan The first part of this article concluded that the most likely cause of the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan program’s dramatic decline from 2022 to 2024 was displacement by two other federally subsidized sources of U.S. water infrastructure finance,Read More

Explaining the Decline in WIFIA Loan Volume: Part 1

Explaining the Decline in WIFIA Loan Volume: Part 1

Washington Report, Water Finance November 24, 2025 at 7:35 am

By John Ryan What is happening at EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan program? The mysterious issue is not the near-complete cessation of loan closings under Trump 2.0. The reason for that is clearer: the Office of Management and Budget’s pause on federal grantsRead More

Commentary: Proposed Cut of Army Corps Finance Program Likely Based on Misinformation

Commentary: Proposed Cut of Army Corps Finance Program Likely Based on Misinformation

By John Ryan The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Corps Water Infrastructure Finance Program (CWIFP) is an original part of the successful 2014 WIFIA loan program statutory framework. CWIFP’s implementation has been much delayed (more on that later), but the program was finally able toRead More

A Process of Questioning: WIFIA Sub-UST Rates for SRFs in a New Policy World

A Process of Questioning: WIFIA Sub-UST Rates for SRFs in a New Policy World

Washington Report, Water Finance May 8, 2025 at 2:15 pm

By John Ryan Like it or not, the U.S. federal government is in the middle of a major upheaval. Everything and anything, no matter how well established by time or precedent, can be questioned. It’s unlikely that the policy parameters of federal finance for waterRead More

Commentary — WIFIA FCRA Criteria: Poster Child of Bureaucratic Overreach

Commentary — WIFIA FCRA Criteria: Poster Child of Bureaucratic Overreach

Water Finance April 28, 2025 at 12:45 pm

By John Ryan Are the 2020 WIFIA Federal Credit Reform Act Criteria an example of bureaucratic overreach? Before Jan. 20 of this year, the answer to that question would perhaps not have mattered much. But now it does – as a precursor to more directRead More

Commentary: Now is the time to amend WIFIA

Commentary: Now is the time to amend WIFIA

By John Ryan Congress certainly looks like an exciting place this fall, with plenty of political fireworks and intense drama over spending. But there’s no doubt legislators and their constituents will also want to see progress on some basic things that are clearly beneficial, aren’tRead More

Revisiting WIFIA Sub-UST Interest Rates for SRFs

Revisiting WIFIA Sub-UST Interest Rates for SRFs

By John Ryan The WIFIA loan program offers an interest rate derived from current U.S. Treasury (UST) yields at loan closing. Other large-scale federal infrastructure loan programs like TIFIA and CIFIA do the same. The underlying idea is that the loan should cover the government’sRead More

EPA’s 100th WIFIA loan to invest in Santa Clara County, California

EPA’s 100th WIFIA loan to invest in Santa Clara County, California

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced two Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loans totaling $115 million to Santa Clara Valley Water District in Santa Clara County, California, to improve resiliency of the system’s water infrastructure. The announcement marks the 99th and 100th loansRead More

Six FCRA Criteria for Federally Involved Projects

Six FCRA Criteria for Federally Involved Projects

Public Utility Finance, Water Finance February 15, 2023 at 11:34 am

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 degreeRead More