1. Federal Issues Briefing
WEE Winter Meeting:
Federal Issues Briefing
Lynn Schloesser
February 25, 2019

2. 2019 Agenda: Infrastructure House T&I Chairman DeFazio’s approach:
Transportation
Water
Vertical(?)
Hazardous waste
Emphasis on funding/financing

3. 2019 Agenda: Infrastructure
Potential Pay-Fors:
Penny for Progress – issue 30-year bonds, repaid with an annual gas tax increase
Passenger Facility Charge – raise/uncap to fund airport projects
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund – spend down existing balance to align funding with revenues
Penny for Progress – issue 30-year bonds, repaid with an annual gas tax increase indexed to construction cost inflation and corporate average fuel economy; could raise $500 billion through FY2030.
Passenger Facility Charge – raise/uncap current $4.50 limit on PFCs to fund airport projects.
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund – spend down existing balance to align funding with revenues.

4. 2019 Agenda: Infrastructure Senate/Administration approach:
FAST Act Reauthorization
Catalyst for larger package
Open to new revenues?
WRDA
Corps projects, water & wastewater provisions

5. 2019 Agenda: Infrastructure
Finance Proposals (transportation, water, public buildings)
Rebuild America Act (Blumenauer) – increase fuels taxes
National VMT pilot program (S. Graves)
Move America Act (Wyden, Hoeven) – creates new tax-exempt PAB and infrastr. tax credit finance P3s (transportation, water and sewer)
BUILD Act (Cornyn, Warner) – increases PAB cap from $15 billion to $20.8 billion for highway, freight projects
TIFIA: RAPID Act (Cornyn, Kaine); TIFIA for Airports (Duckworth)
Private Activity Bonds for Public Buildings (Blumenauer, Kelly)
Rebuild America Act – increase gas and diesel tases 5 cents per gallon every year for 5 years, indexes for inflation
National VMT
Move America Act (Wyden, Hoeven) – creates new tax-exempt PAB and infrastructure tax credit to finance P3s; qualified projects include roads, bridges, transit, ports, rail, airports, water and sewer facilities, and broadband.
BUILD Act (Cornyn, Warner) – increases PAB cap from $15 billion to $20.8 billion for highway, freight projects
RAPID Act (Senators Cornyn and Kaine) – improve TIFIA: clarify eligibility/project credit rating requirements, streamline applications.
TIFIA for Airports (Senator Duckworth) – expands TIFIA eligibility to airport projects, capped at $10 million per year.
Private Activity Bonds for Public Buildings (Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Mike Kelly) – $5 billion in PABs for public buildings. 

6. Agenda for the New Congress
Energy
Bipartisan energy bill in Senate (“all of the above”)
Green New Deal effects?
Eminent Domain?
NEPA, Federal Power Act?
fossil/nuclear?
Cyber Security?
FERC Commissioner Vacancies - two to fill in 2019

7. Agenda for the New Congress
Climate Change: Mitigation, Adaptation (review of disaster supplemental spending, DRRA implementation)
Senate – Republican control - more measured approach
House – Democrat control – Green New Deal
Carbon management with substitution of fossil inputs for renewables: energy, agriculture, transportation (high-speed rail) manufacturing; carbon storage (soils, afforestation) to achieve net-zero emissions
Socio-economic mobilization for benefit of “frontline and vulnerable communities” (education, jobs, …)
GND implementation calls for an historic scale of mobilization comparable to WWII and the New Deal, but, by comparison, to deploy a broader more ambitious set of processes and policies to assure collaboration and shared benefits with “frontline and vulnerable communities” (“migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth”) including training, education, guaranteed local jobs, unionization, community investments with public ownership stakes, among other things. GND implementation is to assure that “eminent domain is not abused.”

8. Agenda for the New Congress
Water and Environment Issues
Superfund –
efforts to reinstate the tax
emerging contaminants a new driver (PFAS)
climate change impacts on sites
viewed as infrastructure issue
PFAS – focus on accelerating MCL determination, funding for remediation
WOTUS – Comments due April 15, 2019.

9. Agenda for the New Congress
International:
Trade agreements
EX-IM Bank
USAID
“Transparency” legislation – mandate use of software to track computer usage
Tax –
extenders and technical corrections
carbon, superfund, fuels?