Infrastructure

Congressional Democrats, White House may find it difficult to end short-term HTF extensions when latest one lapses.

The House voted 387 to 35 on a bill Tuesday night that would reauthorize surface transportation programs for another two months and avoid a cutoff of federal reimbursements to states for highway and transit projects during the busy construction season.

The House may vote Tuesday on a two-month extension of federal transportation funding that otherwise would end May 31.

A Senate proposal would stretch the current Highway Trust Fund extension to keep federal transportation dollars flowing.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee leaders plan June vote on six-year highway bill. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recommends a path for sustainable highway funding.

Against a backdrop of urgency and uncertainty, transportation advocates are offering alternative revenue streams for New York's MTA.

An issuer’s fare revenues for bus service along privately operated highway lanes would not cause bonds to be used to finance the lanes to be private-activity bonds, the Internal Revenue Service ruled.

Lawmakers who vote to raise state gas taxes don't face an irate electorate at the next election, according to an analysis in seven states. Rep. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., introduced a bill to create a National Infrastructure Bank.

All federal transportation payments to states will stop as of June 1 unless Congress extends the short-term fix to the Highway Trust Fund before it expires May 31, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Monday in a letter to state transportation directors.

California has $80 billion of highway needs through 2025 with only $20 billion of available transportation funding.

The tax-exempt financing committee of the American Bar Association's taxation section is working on a paper that will identify for tax regulators modifications to tax rules that could facilitate public-private partnerships.

A radio ad campaign targeting congressional leaders warns that inaction on the restoring the HTF imperils state highway and transit projects.

The authors of a new paper from The Hamilton Project at Brookings propose four short-term and three long-term ways to address the need for infrastructure investment in the United States, including a revival of the Build America Bond program.

Senate Democrats slam Republican leadership over lack of ideas for long-term highway fix.

Attorneys for All Aboard Florida told a federal judge that the private passenger train owners could close on $1.75 billion in tax exempt private activity bonds around June 8.

The Obama administration's proposal to create a new class of tax-exempt debt that is permitted within the context and requirements of public private partnership is a hopeful sign of a way forward in creating a new hybrid infrastructure financing model.

Finance chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch is looking for the $11 billion needed to keep the HTF solvent through 2015.

Lack of action on a long-term transportation funding bill “is a joke,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. and John Hoeven, R-N.D., on Monday introduced legislation that would create Move America Bonds, which would generally be treated as exempt-facility, private-activity bonds but would have fewer restrictions and separate state volume caps that could be converted into tax credit allocations.

Average gasoline consumption falls to a 30-year low, threatening revenues from the main source of state and federal transportation funding.