Calif. Pollution Control Agency Gets $590 Million PAB Allocation

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Pollution Control Financing Authority has $590 million in new allocation for private-activity bond debt, after of a flurry of activity this month by the state’s debt limit committee to distribute almost $1.8 billion in volume cap before the end of the year.

The $590 million allocation gives the authority, which allocates private-activity bond volume cap to businesses that build or install pollution control, waste disposal, and waste recovery facilities, more than $1.3 billion in volume cap to work with heading into 2010, according to spokesman Joe DeAnda.

The pollution control authority, the CPCFA, like the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee, operates out of the state treasurer’s office.

Over the last five years, the CPCFA has served as the conduit issuer for an average of $235 million annually, but the authority anticipates enough projects over the next three years to support the allocation, according to the staff report prepared for the Dec. 16 meeting where the debt limit committee made the allocations.

DeAnda said the CPCFA has worked to streamline its application process to make it easier for bond deals to get done.

Applicants no longer have to trudge through separate applications for the debt limit committee and the financing authority, DeAnda said; they go directly to the CPCFA.

“Now it’s basically a one-stop shop,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to basically get that money out.”

Because of the carry-forward nature of the allocation, the CPCFA has until 2013 to use its 2009 award, DeAnda said.

The debt limit committee had to act before year’s end to assign its volume cap allocations or use them, deputy treasurer Bettina Redway, Treasurer Bill Lockyer’s representative, said at the Dec. 16 meeting.

“We have to allocate it,” she said. “We have to assign it to an issuer.”

The pollution control authority got what was left after the committee allocated more than $1.2 billion in volume cap to seven different issuers that plan to use their allocations for multifamily housing.

Those awards range from $50 million to the Sacramento County Housing Authority to $399.96 million for the California Statewide Communities Development Authority, according to the staff report.

“This is the first time we have done anything quite like this,” Redway said at the meeting, referring to its decision to allocate volume cap to joint powers authorities such as the CSCDA.

According to the staff report, its multifamily recommendations were based on a survey of “12 highly active issuers,” of which seven indicated they wished to receive a 2009 carry-forward allocation.

California’s private-activity bond volume cap is expected to rise 0.6% for 2010, to $3.33 billion, based on population figures released last week by the Census Bureau.

There will be plenty of demand in 2010, Redway told the debt-limit committee.

That includes a request in the $530 million range from Poseidon Resources, which plans to construct a large-scale water desalination plant at Carlsbad in Southern California.

The plant would provide water to nine public water agencies in San Diego County.

That request is expected to reach the committee for its Jan. 14 meeting, Redway said.

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