Infrastructure

President Biden met Wednesday with top Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to discuss a bipartisan way forward on this issue.

The White House and a bipartisan cadre of lawmakers appear committed to getting infrastructure, including top muni market lobbying goals, achieved.

The underwriter is no longer engaged with the state's plan to build prisons to be owned by private operator CoreCivic Inc.

The state has allocated $1.3 billion over three years to repair and replace 163 buildings, General Treasurer Seth Magaziner reported.

An increase to $30 billion from $15 billion on the PAB allotment overseen by the Department of Transportation was one suggestion a House panel heard Thursday.

Public finance groups hope that the Biden administration will show the same support for tax-exempt bonds that House Democrats do.

The bonds would include a subsidy rate of 28% and would be exempt from sequestration.

Though Republicans and Democrats are far apart on the price tag, there is agreement on the need to invest in physical infrastructure and the need to pay for it.

A group of GOP senators is working to put together a more traditional infrastructure bill that would range from $600 to $800 billion dollars.

Anticipating a flood of funding from President Biden's infrastructure plan, states are positioning for an expansion of broadband to rural and underserved areas.

A VMT fee was also the consensus way to pay for infrastructure during a Senate EPW Committee hearing on Wednesday.

The P3 taxable deal aims to replace the state’s old, dilapidated and outdated jails with more modern alternatives in a bid to ease prison overcrowding and provide new services to inmates.

Instead of trying to spend more within traditional programs, the federal government should design more modern policy, Brookings experts said.

Municipal bonds, issued by state and local governments, finance infrastructure investment and should be the foundation of any modernization package.

Roddy Devlin, a partner at Nixon Peabody, explores President Biden's $2.3 trillion bill, which he says "dwarfs anything we've seen for decades." Paul Burton hosts. (23 minutes)

If an infrastructure bill does go through a partisan route, municipal bonds’ future could be very fluid.

These so-called American Renewal Bonds would help finance a national infrastructure initiative until the economy sufficiently recovers from the pandemic.

The EPA would be responsible for administering the new grant program, should it become reality.

America simply cannot compete globally, especially with China, without an infrastructure-driven advanced manufacturing and inventive base.

Over the weekend, prominent senators criticized President Biden's infrastructure plan, with some more moderate senators' votes hanging in the balance.