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

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

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced a $340 million financing commitment to upgrade the City of Philadelphia’s aging drinking water infrastructure, including replacing customers’ lead service lines. The agency says a Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) low-interest loan will jumpstart theRead More

By John Ryan The EPA’s WIFIA loan program offers several interest rate management features that are highly beneficial for large-scale infrastructure financings, including a U.S. Treasury-based fixed-rate lock for construction and permanent drawdowns, post-execution rate resets until draw, and no-penalty cancellation and prepayment. All areRead More

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a $500 million loan to the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank to modernize wastewater and drinking water systems serving over 10 million people throughout New Jersey. This is the first loan issued through the State Infrastructure Financing AuthorityRead More

A group of water sector organizations and technology companies are asking the U.S. Environmental Protections Agency (EPA) to expand Build America, Buy America (BABA) waivers for all EPA-funded water and wastewater infrastructure projects through the end of 2024, AMWA says. The associations and companies areRead More

The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), representing large U.S. drinking water systems, submitted a pair of comments this month pertaining to proposed waivers of Build America, Buy America (BABA) requirements for EPA program-funded projects. EPA has previously proposed temporary public interest waivers for projects funded byRead More

By John Ryan U.S. public infrastructure renewal was never going to be easy, but several current trends suggest that it will soon be even more challenging. Federal infrastructure loan programs are a proven policy tool, and their capabilities should be expanded in specific and practicalRead More

The Senate last week approved its 2022 version of the Water Resources Development Act, biennial legislation that authorizes a variety of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control, navigation, and ecosystem restoration projects and studies. The Senate’s amended version of H.R. 7776 passed by a tally of 93–1, andRead More

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced the 2022 notices of funding availability for the agency’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) program and the State Infrastructure Financing Authority WIFIA (SWIFIA) program. This year’s funding will provide up to $6.5 billion in totalRead More