Infra Insight Blog

On June 3, the United States Banking Committee unanimously forwarded a bill (S. 2244 the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2014) that would extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (or TRIA) for seven years.  The bill forwarded by the Senate Banking Committee was introduced in April by Senators Schumer (D-NY), Kirk (R-IL), Reed (D-RI), Heller (R-NV) and has 23 cosponsors.

Chairman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Subcommittee of the Housing and Insurance Committee is pursuing a three year reauthorization.  A ...

Wrapping up the 2013 P3 awards season, East End Crossing won the Projects Grand Prize as well as the Gold Prize for best P3 road project at the Partnerships Bulletin awards ceremony Thursday night at the Park Lane Hotel in London.  The toll bridge availability payment project in southern Indiana, USA, was the top winner among 7 other P3 projects nominated from around the world.  Attended by over 700 of the leading industry participants, the project was recognized for its innovative financing structure and well run procurement process.

Connecting Kentucky and Indiana over the Ohio ...

The Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) 5th annual International Conference on Financing Surface Transportation will be held from July 9-11, 2014 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.

The conference will examine the current status of transportation finance and future possibilities through thought-provoking program offerings with presenters from the fields of transportation research, government, and the private sector.

Conference sessions include:

• Innovation, Experimentation and Exploration – The Landscape of Transportation Funding and Finance ...

The U.S. Department of Transportation has initiated changes to its TIGER Application review process effective for the pending TIGER VI round of funding.  The most important change is that once a project receives a technical rating, that rating will not change during the remainder of the review process.

On May 28, 2014 the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report finding that in TIGER V round of funding, DOT did not document key decisions to accept and review late applications, advance projects with lower technical ratings instead of more highly-rated projects,  and ...

Last week, officials from Amtrak, Norfolk Southern and the Federal Railroad Administration and Indiana Governor Mike Pence gathered to celebrate commencement of construction on the Indiana Gateway Project.

The $71.4 million project, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will upgrade the rail line and right-of-way between Porter, Ind. and the Illinois state line.  Norfolk Southern will install universal crossovers at five locations and construct additional mainline track at three locations. 

Most significantly, NS will construct a new passing track at ...

As rail shipments of crude oil moving out of North Dakota’s Bakken formation have risen in recent years, so have derailments of trains carrying crude oil throughout the United States and Canada.  One facet of the debate over how to improve the safety of crude by rail shipments concerns the volatility of Bakken crude compared to other crude oil moved by rail.   In January the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) sent a letter to the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) requesting information on the tests and methods used to analyze and classify ...

Following the 412-4 vote in the U.S. House on Tuesday and the 91-7 vote in the U.S. Senate yesterday, the president is expected to quickly sign into the law the Water Resources and Reform Development Act of 2014 (WRRDA).  In addition to $12.3 billion earmarked for 8 current and 34 new water projects, a key provision of the WRRDA is the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) which establishes a 5 year pilot program administered by the EPA and Corp of Engineers to provide low cost loans for water, waster\water and flood control infrastructure projects.

Modeled after the ...

On May 14, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) posted a reminder that Buy America, a domestic preference law, applies to the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program.  FRA posted the reminder because many potential RRIF loan and loan guarantee applicants are short line and regional freight railroads and may not be familiar with Buy America requirements.

The RRIF program was established in 1998 under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century of 1998 (TEA-21), with subsequent changes to the program coming in the Safe, Accountable ...

While federal officials continue their efforts to address railroad transportation of petroleum crude oil (crude-by-rail), Virginia intends to make a parallel but somewhat broader effort with respect to hazardous material rail transportation. 

On May 7th the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued an Emergency Order (EO) requiring all rail carriers to notify State Emergency Response Commissions (SERCs) regarding the expected routing of their unit trains of Bakken crude oil. The EO is effective in 30 days. The DOT issued the EO in response to the "startling" number of crude ...

Posted by guest blogger William Moore.

William Moore of Vianovo works with the Transportation Transformation Group, a consortia of public and private entities that looks at ways of improving the funding and financing of the nation's transportation infrastructure, which is co-chaired by Nossaman Partner Geoffrey Yarema.

The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unveiled a six-year surface transportation bill last night that would maintain current funding under MAP-21 legislation expiring in September, plus inflation. Every state would ...