Infrastructure

A four-person team of experienced professionals will help lead the American Association of Airport Executives.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will conduct a $452 million combination new money/refunding competitive sale Dec. 4 to pay for cost overruns on several projects.

The merger of American Airlines and US Airways Group can proceed as scheduled after a federal bankruptcy judge's clearance of the airlines' federal anti-trust settlement.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane is expected to issue a decision on the American Airlines bankruptcy at a hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday in New York.

Crowded terminals will become more common unless U.S. airports are able to fund the additional infrastructure needed to meet growing passenger demand.

Municipalities who spearhead solar energy projects for their public facilities now can track these green investments from their computers.Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Wiser Capital recently launched the nation’s first online marketplace that enables local governments the ability to determine their savings when utilizing solar for energy needs. The web-based platform evaluates and matches stakeholders based on their qualifications and requirements. It consists of analytical tools, financial modeling and transaction services that objectively score performance risks any project presents.

A coalition of local leaders is asking Congress to generate an additional $30 billion a year for transportation efforts by almost doubling the federal gasoline tax.

House and Senate conferees predicted Wednesday that Congress will approve an $8 billion federal water infrastructure bill by year's end.

Counties are facing a "triple threat" of tax reform, entitlement reform and sequestration, National Association of Counties Executive Director Matthew Chase said at a briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

The federal government will swap obsolete office buildings in Washington for more modern facilities through P3 arrangements.

American Airlines will ask a bankruptcy court to approve an agreement with federal regulators that settles the government's antitrust lawsuit against American's proposed merger with US Airways Group Inc.

Vice President Joe Biden used a visit to the Port of Houston to renew the Obama administration's proposal for a $50 billion infrastructure renewal program.

National League of Cities members on Saturday elected St. Paul, Minn. Mayor Chris Coleman as their president for 2014 at a business meeting on Saturday.

Legislation recently introduced in Congress would transfer nearly all authority over federal highway and transit programs to states and substantially reduce federal motor fuel taxes over a five-year period.

Tolls from managed traffic lanes can be an effective way to fund expensive highway projects, but investors need to consider revenue volatility.

States are no longer waiting for the federal government when it comes to trying to drum up new revenue for transportation infrastructure, said Victor Mendez, administrator, Federal Highway Administration, Friday morning at the Bond Buyer's Transportation Finance/P3 conference here.

A Nov. 11 announcement that Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves will be building a new stadium in suburban Cobb County and will receive some form of local government funding has brought an age-old debate on whether public dollars for sports facilities makes economic sense for municipalities back to the forefront. The question of governments such as Cobb County utilizing public money for sports venues was raised on Nov. 6 during a panel called “Stadium Financing: Boon or Bane” at the Bloomberg State & Municipal Conference in New York. Gregory Carey, managing director at Goldman Sachs & Co. who heads the investment banking company’s sports finance and surface transportation finance group, argued that the pros of governments investing in stadiums and arenas for their sports teams outweighs the cons. One example cited by Carey was how the $400 million the state of Minnesota is putting in toward a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings comprises roughly the payroll tax paid by the National Football League franchise that would be lost should the team have relocated out of the area.

Legislation introduced in the Senate Thursday would create a new financing authority that would provide loans and loan guarantees for infrastructure projects.

Municipal borrowers looking to expedite the process to tap the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program for project loans should bring a thorough financing package to the table and be flexible in negotiating terms, loan recipients offered up as advice Thursday.

More than $5 billion in private activity bond capacity remains available from DOT to fund P3’s that invest in large surface transportation projects.