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Permitting Up in the Air as Trump Admin Takes Office

The first few weeks of the second Trump administration have been busy to say the least. Included among the dozens of executive orders from the first week of the administration was a day 1 order with significant implications for project permitting in the United States. While the order, titled “Unleashing American Energy,” was ostensibly focused […]

P3 Trends into a New Year, New Administration

2024 marked a year of significant shifts in the public-private partnership (P3) industry in the United States. Some of those trends are going to continue playing out in 2025, while others remain uncertain. This is a year in review based on what PWF covered in 2024, and what we’re watching out for in 2025.

Draft Federal Value for Money Guidelines Open for Comment

At long last, the Build America Bureau (BAB) has released draft Value for Money (VfM) analysis guidance that it was required to develop as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). The BIL created new requirements for public sponsors to apply VfM studies to new categories of projects, and tasked the BAB to develop new […]

Uinta Basin Rail P3 Goes to (the Supreme) Court

PWF first covered the Uinta Basin rail P3 project because, if it ever happens, it would be the first new freight rail line built in the United States in at least three decades. The proposed 88-mile line in Utah made significant predevelopment progress as a public-private partnership in 2021 and 2022, but it is currently […]

Commentary: New Regulatory Risk for P3 Advisors

The P3 advisory industry is waking up to a new source of regulatory risk, based on remarks from a senior Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official in September. The crux of the new risk: according to the SEC, some P3 advisors may be “unregistered entities engaging in municipal advisory activity.” The remarks were part of […]

PWF Interview: Shawn Wilson on the IIJA at Three

Shawn Wilson was Louisiana’s Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) from 2016 to 2023. In that role he created the agency’s Office of Innovative Procurement and initiated the first public-private partnership procurements in the state’s history, including the Calcasieu River Bridge Project, which just reached financial close last month. In 2020, he […]

Reforming Environmental Litigation

The transportation community is well aware that opponents of major projects use litigation to challenge Environmental Impact Statements after they are issued. While Congress in recent years has enacted modest reforms regarding the time frame and page count of EISs, it has not considered any reforms that would limit the delays and costs imposed by […]

Obstruction Pays? Big Federal Grant for I-83 Bridge Replacement in PA

When eight municipalities near the I-83 John Harris Memorial Bridge filed their lawsuit against the Major Bridge P3 Initiative, they could not possibly have imagined just how successful their attempt at obstruction would be. The 64-year-old I-83 bridge was one of nine bridges statewide that the initiative would replace, but their lawsuit won a temporary […]

On Reforming Environmental Litigation: A New Report from the Reason Foundation

In recent years, it seems that the United States has slowly awakened to the fact that it has a building problem. Namely, that we have a lot of trouble doing so. Infrastructure development in the United States has many challenges, but one of them is certainly the prevalence of litigation on major public works. In […]

Biden CEQ Finalizes New NEPA Rule, and States Sue

Uncertainty (and lawfare) over federal permitting for large public works is likely to continue in the coming months, as the Biden Administration and a coalition of mostly red states battle it out in court over a recent rulemaking. At the end of April, Biden Administration’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized a major overhaul of […]