Infrastructure

Rep. Peter DeFazio wants to build highways with a wholesale tax on oil and repeal the federal gasoline tax.

President Obama signed into law Tuesday a $12.3 billion water infrastructure bill that funds 34 port, inland waterway, and flood control projects.

Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray says closing corporate tax loopholes would pay for federal transportation funding needed to avoid a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.

House GOP leaders push ahead with a plan to fund highway projects for a year with savings realized by limited Saturday mail deliveries.

New study links increased public corruption to high levels of state expenditures on highways and other construction projects.

The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday that they will hold a series of tax reform hearings this summer and will continue to look for innovative ways to fix the Highway Trust Fund other than using revenues from repatriation.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a $51 billion transportation spending measure for fiscal 2015, as a subcommittee chair warned about the pending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund.

The proposed EPA rule to reduce carbon emissions could negatively pressure issuers' credit ratings, some analysts said in preliminary comments this week.

Recent improvements in airline profits are credit positive for airport bonds and may lead to increased capital investments, Well Fargo says.

Senate Appropriations subcommittee approved legislation that would keep federal highway funding at 2014 levels next year while increasing transit spending by $310 million.

HUD's post-Sandy program awarded combined $540 million for a 10-mile berm along Manhattan's Lower East Side, a living breakwater along Staten Island's shore and protection for the Hunts Point food market and Long Island waterways.

House GOP leaders propose cutting Saturday mail deliveries and use the savings to fund highway projects.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., will propose a 12 cent per gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax to support highway and transit projects.

A bill introduced in the Senate mirrors legislation pending in the House proposal to remove the state volume cap on private activity bonds issued for water utility projects.

Qualified 501(c)(3) bonds are a financing tool that can be used to grow nonprofits' clean-energy infrastructure and reduce their energy expenditures, the Clean Energy and Bond Finance Initiative said in a recently released paper.

P3s are useful financial tools, not magical risk-free solutions, for increased state funding of transportation projects, NASBO says.

More oversight is needed of how the Transportation Department awards TIGER transportation grants, Government Accountability Office says in a new report.

Efforts are under way in Congress to amend a new federal loan program for water infrastructure that excludes tax-exempt bonds from the project funding package.

Travel executives say under-investment in U.S. transportation infrastructure threatens the nation's global standing.

Proposals to keep federal transportation funding at current levels will worsen the existing backlog of transit system deferred maintenance.