Infra Insight Blog

Introduction

On Wednesday, February 24, 2016, Florida’s Governor Rick Scott signed two bills which exempt trade secret financial information from the state’s Sunshine Laws. The change is significant in a state known for expansive open records and meetings laws, and should provide comfort to private sector participants pursuing P3 projects and otherwise doing business in Florida. Both acts take effect on October 1, 2016.

SBs 180 and 182

SB 180 amends Section 812.081 of the Florida Statutes by expanding the definition of trade secret to include financial information ...

State and local governments can now obtain railroad bridge inspection reports by making requests on the website of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). This new tool will help state and local governments gain better information regarding this important aspect of railroad safety in their communities.

Access to the public version of bridge inspection reports is required by section 11405 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act). Under the FAST Act, the following information about a bridge will be included in the report:

• The date of the last inspection;

At the end of 2015, two modal administrations of the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT) have encountered changes to their Buy America programs.  Both the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have had changes imposed upon their Buy America procedures – the FTA by Congress through provisions in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (or, FAST Act) and the FHWA through a recent opinion in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing ...

Design liability and right-of-way risk allocation are topics addressed in a legal research digest recently published by the Transportation Research Board’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP).  The report, which can be downloaded here, discusses statutes, case law and contract language relevant to design liability, addresses how the right of way acquisition process interrelates with design-build projects, and analyzes how design-build contracts allocate the related risks.  The report was authored by Michael Loulakis (Capital Project Strategies ...

We all know how hard it is to change federal statutes these days—you need an Act of Congress and the President to sign the bill.  Last week, a group of the top public finance lawyers in the US offered an approach relating to the use of tax exempt bonds that wouldn’t require a change in tax statutes but instead could be accomplished through a change in the regulations relating to the so-called private use test.  As the group pointed out in its letter to high ranking US Treasury officials, Congress itself has made it clear that Treasury had the authority to adopt other, more flexible rules.

The ...

Posted by guest blogger Billy Moore.

Billy 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 House and Senate conferees have agreed on a compromise $305 billion five-year surface transportation authorization: the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. The bill should be headed to the White House in the next few days. It would ...

The Regents of the University of California (the Regents) approved the commercial terms of the P3 agreement for the UC Merced 2020 Project (the Project) on Thursday, November 19, 2015 at the Regents meeting held in San Francisco, contingent on a not to exceed limit on financial proposals.

The Regents’ approval authorizes the university to move forward with the Request for Proposals (RFP) phase of the Project with the three proposing teams that were shortlisted in January.  The equity members for these teams are:

• E3 2020:  Balfour Beatty Investments, Inc., Star America E3 2020 ...

Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) staff today briefed its Board of Airport Commissioners on its plans to deliver and finance the estimated $5 billion Landside Access Modernization Program (LAMP) at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).  LAMP includes several elements, including an elevated 2.25-mile automated people mover (APM), a consolidated rent-a-car facility (ConRAC), parking garages, pedestrian bridges to airport terminals and roadway improvements.  The APM will have several stops between LAX’s Central Terminal Area and the new ConRAC, including a stop at a ...

Some recent events, taken together, provide evidence that policy-makers in the United States are growing more comfortable with public-private partnerships as a vehicle for project delivery, in particular with respect to the nation’s decaying infrastructure and bridging the resultant financing challenges.

Following President Obama’s Build America Investment Initiative early this summer, the U.S. Department of Transportation established the Build America Transportation Investment Center (or BATIC) that would, among other things, enable non-federal but still ...

A crucial highway improvement for the growing Phoenix region reached an important milestone November 2 when the Arizona Department of Transportation received proposals from all three short-listed teams vying to develop the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway Project.  The three multidiscipline teams are identified in our March 2015 blog.

This $1.9 billion megaproject includes the design, construction and 30-year maintenance of the last section of the Loop 202 Freeway – a route which will stretch 22 miles from the Maricopa Freeway segment of I-10 to the Papago Freeway segment of I-10 ...