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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 […]

FHWA Seeking Input On BIL Implementation

Although its passage alone was a milestone, some of the most important decisions regarding the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are still to come. Given the amount of discretionary spending in the legislation, agencies now have a monumental task in developing procedures to advertise funding opportunities, collect and review applications, and make the best possible allocation decisions. […]

Applications Open for New Round of IIJA Grants for Transport Projects

The Department of Transportation has published its 2023 Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant (MPDG) program. This year public sponsors will be able to apply for more than $5.5 billion in federal discretionary infrastructure grants through the program, or roughly double the amount advertised in fiscal 2022.

Infrastructure Development by Emergency Declaration

When the highway overpass on I-95 north of Philadelphia came down last month, it wasn’t due to the usual poor maintenance or political dysfunction that are often blamed for America’s crumbling infrastructure. A gasoline truck lost control and crashed into the underpass, and the ensuing fire brought the short bridge down. All of a sudden, […]

Permitting Pork and the Debt Ceiling Deal

Permitting reform is not exactly a topic that you would expect to be wrapped up in the middle of last month’s federal debt ceiling negotiations, but there it was. The fact is that there are factions in both parties who support reforms to the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and a handful of other tweaks […]

Biden Admin Releases Permitting Action Plan Guidance

On March 6th, detailed guidance on how to speed up environmental permitting was finally released to federal agencies. The guidance was published by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC) in the White House. The three agencies were tasked with producing […]

Transit Costs Project Publishes Final Report

The Transit Costs Project based out of NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management has been collecting data on mass transit projects around the world, inspired by a single question: Why are transit projects in the United States so incredibly expensive? Today, the research initiative’s trove of data amounts to more than 900 projects in 59 […]