The biggest threat to the public infrastructure in Texas is a lack of sustainable funding, the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers said last week in its 2012 report card.
Texans fail to see as long-term investments the money spent on maintaining roads, repairing the state's 7,000 dams, and ensuring an adequate water supply, said Crespin Guzman, executive director of the Texas group.
"We can either invest in our future now, or pay even more later if we fail to meet these obvious needs," he said at a news conference in Fort Worth. "We cannot continue to build things and not fund or maintain them."
Guzman said the state will need $212 billion of new water supply, distribution, and treatment facilities over the next 50 years to meet the demands of a growing population.
"If a major drought occurs in Texas in 2060, approximately 41% of municipal demand for water could not be satisfied by current water sources," he said.
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Inflows returned to muni mutual funds as investors added $200.3 million for the week ending Wednesday after $1.474 billion of outflows, according to LSEG Lipper.
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Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly nixed another tax cut bill passed by the Republican-led legislature this year, while pushing a less-costly plan.
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It's a big week for the Fortress-backed train company, which refinanced more than $4 billion of debt and broke ground on its West Coast high-speed line.
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Photos from The Bond Buyer's Texas Public Finance conference.
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The Mayo Clinic is undertaking a $5 billion expansion that may bring new debt as it reconstructs its core Rochester, Minnesota campus.
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"Just like the ATM became an additional transaction channel in the banking industry, I believe distributed ledger technology will provide municipal issuers with a similarly valued tool to sell their bonds," said Rick Coscia, Quincy's Strategic Asset Manager.
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