Infra Insight Blog

February 12, 2025 Update

The evening of February 11, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the Administration’s request for an administrative stay of the TRO and subsequent order enforcing its TRO issued by the United States District Court in the District of Rhode Island, pending the Administration’s motion for a stay of the TRO and subsequent order pending appeal.  In denying the request, the First Circuit was unconvinced that the TROs and subsequent order “. . . bars both the President and much of the Federal Government from exercising their own ...

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 ... 

Sean Duffy was sworn in as the 20th Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) on January 29, 2025, and immediately issued directives that will impact the operations of the Department and its Operating Administrations (OA), as well as state and local grant recipients ... 

Late last Friday on November 5^th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or IIJA, which President Biden intends to sign on Monday, November 15^th. Much of the focus of the bill has been on the unprecedented increase in federal spending to rebuild the nation's roads, bridges, airports, seaports and transit systems. However, there are several provisions of the infrastructure bill that expand, and hopefully will make more transparent, the TIFIA credit assistance program. A low-cost ...

Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx chaired a virtual town hall meeting, entitled Moving from Uncertainty to Long-Term Transportation Investment, on August 6, 2014.  The town hall was open to the general public, as well as business leaders, transportation advocates, and state and local government officials.  Secretary Foxx discussed the United States Department of Transportation’s (US DOT) vision for the future of transportation, as well as answered questions from attendees about transportation policy.

In his opening remarks, and throughout the question and answer ...

As part of its effort to meet MAP-21’s legislative requirement to develop standard public-private partnership transaction model contracts for the most popular types of public-private partnerships, the Federal Highway Administration held a listening session with representatives from the transportation industry at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington D.C. on January 16.  Representatives from state departments of transportation, general contractors, trade associations, legal advisors and others were in attendance, and solicited to provide FHWA with the ...