The Senate confirmed D.J. Gribbin, formerly a member of Holdings Inc.’s public-private partnership team, to become general counsel of the Department of Transportation. The Senate approval by voice vote Wednesday came after Gribbin was nominated by President Bush Jan. 11. In his new post Gribbin is reunited with Mary Peters, his former boss who was tapped to lead the DOT in September. Prior to accepting the post, Peters was head of the department’s Federal Highway Administration between 2001 and 2005. Gribbin had served under her as chief counsel of the agency from 2003 to 2005. After leaving the FHWA, Gribbin joined Macquarie to help develop opportunities for investment in U.S. infrastructure. While at the FHWA, Peters and Gribbin pushed for transportation policies that made it easier for the private sector to participate in transportation infrastructure finance. One example of their efforts is a provision included in abroad transportation law enacted in 2005 that changed the tax law to allow private companies to use up to $15 billion of private-activity bonds that would be exempt from state volume caps to finance the construction of highway and intermodal rail projects. Gribbin’s Senate confirmation came as Bush announced his intention to renominate Robert C. Brown to be a member of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority for a term expiring Nov. 22, 2011. Brown, who former President Bill Clinton nominated to the board, left his job at the U.S. DOT in April to become treasurer of Case Western Reserve University. A long time DOT employee, Brown began work at the agency in late 1999 where he was part of a team that oversaw a program formally titled the Transportation Infrastructure Financing and Innovation Act. TIFIA, as the program is typically known, was part of broad transportation legislation enacted in 1998 that allows the DOT to provide transportation projects with credit assistance instead of more costly traditional grant funding.
