Infra Insight Blog

March 10, 2025 Update (Policy Rescission)

This afternoon (March 10, 2025), Secretary Duffy rescinded policy memoranda issued by the Federal Highway Administration during the Biden administration. The now rescinded memoranda each bore the name “Policy on Using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Resources to Build a Better America”—the first was issued on December 16, 2021 and the second on February 23, 2023. The 2021 memorandum, in particular, attracted significant attention throughout the industry when it stated that federal transportation funding “should be used to ...

February 26, 2025 Update

As discussed in our February 4 and 10, 2025, updates, U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan issued on February 3, 2025, a TRO prohibiting the Trump Administration “from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name OMB memorandum M-25-13 freezing all federal financial assistance under open awards.”  On February 25, 2025, Judge AliKhan granted a preliminary injunction, ordering as follows:

• Enjoining the Trump Administration “from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the unilateral ...

On January 14, 2025, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) announced a new final rule to end its longstanding waiver of Buy America requirements for “manufactured products” used in Federal-aid highway projects.

By way of background, FHWA’s Buy America statute was enacted in 1983 and required FHWA to ensure that all federally funded projects use only steel, iron, and manufactured products that are produced in the United States.  However, at the time, FHWA determined that it would be in the public interest to waive the Buy America requirements for manufactured products ... 

On September 23, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky issued an Opinion and Order in Mid-America Milling Co., LLC, et al., v. U.S. Department of Transportation, et. al., No. 3:23-CV-00072-GFVT, 2024 WL 4267183 (E.D. Ky. Sept. 23, 2024), granting a preliminary injunction on the basis that the race- and gender-based rebuttable presumptions used in the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program violates the United States Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. ... 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, both the public and private sectors have been working to understand the market’s response and search for solutions addressing the pandemic’s unprecedented impacts. On April 2, 2020, Young Professionals in Infrastructure hosted a webinar, “P3s and the Current Pandemic: Industry Perspectives on COVID-19 Impacts.” The panel provided perspectives from a lawyer, an insurance broker, a developer, and a rating agency on dealing with COVID-19. Here are the key takeaways from the webinar ...

A joint venture lead by Capital Development Partners, an industrial real estate and infrastructure development company, has begun construction on a $125 million logistics campus at the Port of Savannah in Georgia, known as the Savannah Port Logistics Center.

The 197-acre industrial campus will offer dual rail service by Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation. The site also will offer transload capability and more than 2,000 container storage positions, according to a Capital Development Parners press release.

The first building to be constructed as part of ...

A government shut down arises when Congress fails to pass an appropriations act that enables federal agencies to spend. There should be separate appropriations acts for groups of agencies.  However, in recent years, Congress has not enacted these separate appropriations acts, but collected them in one enormous bill that includes virtually every agency of the federal government.  Having created these monster bills, Congress then delays passage over battles about what programs or expenditures should or should not be included.  This creates the delays that lead to government ...

On October 10 through 12, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) held their 24th Annual Public-Private Partnerships in Transportation Conference in Washington, DC.  Each year during this conference, the ARTBA P3 Division honors two individuals, one public sector and one private sector, for their exemplary contributions to the transportation industry. 

This year we are proud to announce that Nossaman's Geoff Yarema was named "P3 Private Sector Entrepreneur of the Year."  Geoff is the first two-time recipient of this award, having received the award in ...