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US Airport P3 Sector – Recent Progress, Fixing AIPP

The recent terminal redevelopment P3s that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) pioneered at LaGuardia and then JFK are not included in the All Clear for Takeoff study, except as publicly managed airports. This is in part because those P3s were still too recent to evaluate operationally and because getting operational […]

Build America Bureau Publishes Asset Concessions Technical Assistance NOFO

U.S. public sponsors considering concession contracts on their existing assets have a new opportunity to apply for federal funding to cover their transaction and planning costs. In March the Build America Bureau finally published the first Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Innovative Finance and Asset Concession Grant Program (IFACGP). The program will distribute […]

The IIJA Turns Two

David Leonhardt’s recent essay in The New York Times titled Longer Commutes, Shorter Lives is, in parts, a thorough indictment of American transportation infrastructure progress over the last half century. Between the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 and the first transcontinental passenger flight in 1959, American transportation experienced one revolution after another. […]

Public-Private Partnerships and Other-People’s Money

“Will the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) be good or bad for the US P3 industry?” Two years ago, that was the hotly contested debate in this niche industry, and PWF hosted perspectives arguing both sides in the weeks before and after the historic infrastructure legislation passed into law.

The IIJA and Social Equity on Megaprojects: A Case Study on the LAX APM Project

We are in the middle of an historic investment in America’s infrastructure. After years of promises by previous administrations, multiple iterations, and halting, inconsistent progress, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) with bipartisan support and President Biden signed it into law on November 15, 2021. The $1.2 trillion legislation provides a five-year […]

Biden CEQ Publishes Phase 2 NEPA Permitting Guidance for Public Comment

In late July, the Biden Administration published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that contained many detailed edits to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) guidance for implementing the National Environmental Protection Act of 1970 (NEPA). The new regulations are in small part intended to adapt to the permitting reform legislation, which Congress passed earlier this […]

How the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Will Incentivize P3s

Public-Private Partnerships are used far less in the U.S. than elsewhere. They comprise roughly 1-2% of infrastructure spending in the U.S. vs. 5-20% in other developed countries.  The big question today is whether the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) will send that percentage up or down. For surface transportation, specifically, the BIL provides $110 Billion out […]

The Post-Post Earmarks Pork Barrel Politics

The most impactful earmark of the current legislative era wasn’t technically an earmark at all. The Gateway Program consists of a series of major projects between New Jersey and Penn Station in New York, including a new tunnel under the Hudson River. The current price tag for the program is $12.3 billion, but federal funding […]