Examining municipal implications of the inflation reduction act

The climate, healthcare and tax bill aimed at lowering the current inflation levels was signed into law in August of 2022. Our panel of muni industry experts will help us parse through the law and understand exactly what it does and doesn't do for the public finance industry.  Among points to discuss will be:
  • New direct-pay tax credit bonds for the public power industry likely will boost the sector's growth. How will these new tax credit bonds be allocated, the subsidies paid and what are the projects allowable under the program?
  • Is there a concern that the 15% corporate minimum tax will decrease municipal demand?
Transcription:

David Erdman (00:07):

Good morning everybody. It is 11 o'clock Eastern time and time for us to start our panel and hopefully my loud voice will carry into the hallway and we'll get some people in from the hallway. First off just want to congratulate all the rising stars that were on it earlier. As I was telling someone, this is a great program the Bond Buyer has and hope that they continue it in the future. So congratulations to all the rising stars that were recognized this morning. The title of this panel is Examining Municipal Implications of the Inflation Reduction Act and we'll just do some quick introductions and then this is set up. I'll just provide some general comments about some public sector benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act. Then we'll have a kind of question and answer approach for the rest of the panel and hopefully leaving some time at the end for an questions and answers from the audience. But my means of introduction. My name's David Erdman, I'm a managing director at Baker Tilly Municipal Advisors. Just started that position on July 5th after a long career as debt manager for the state of Wisconsin.

Brett Bolton (01:04):

I'm Brett Bolton. I work at the Bond Dealers of America where we represent middle market fixed income broker dealers here in DC.

Maria McCarthy (01:12):

Hi, I'm Maria McCarthy. I'm the assistant treasurer for the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company. Been with the organization for about three years, but in public and municipal finance for over 20.

Eric Friedland (01:24):

Hi, my name is Eric Friedland. I'm a director at Assured Guarantee. I've been there for all of six weeks. I'm in their infrastructure project finance team, but although I'm new at Assured Guarantee, I've actually been in the business for about 25 years working at another bond insured rating agencies and if you asset management firms.

David Erdman (01:45):

Thank you everybody. Again, we're going to be looking at the Inflation Reduction Act. It's interesting, it has inflation in the title and what I just want to highlight is a lot of the public sector benefits that come from the Inflation Reduction Act for those who aren't aware of the act that was passed enacted in August of 2022, has a lot of provisions in there regarding climate funding, healthcare funding, and some taxes to pay for all that. For many of us in the issuer side that there was some language that we had to amend our official statements with to address this new corporate tax that took into account. But the amount of funding for energy projects is what I want to highlight. Nearly 500 billion of funds for energy projects or total funding I should say, with a good portion of that going toward energy and the funding for the energy projects is both for tax credits, grants and loans for qualifying projects.

(02:32)

Key thing from an issuer's perspective is this is the first time that a lot of these tax credits are available for taxes exempt to municipal entities. Many of these tax credits were in place for many years for private sector, and the only way that a government could take advantage of these tax credits was to work in conjunction with a private entity. But the Inflation Reduction Act now extends this so that municipalities themselves can take full credit of these tax credits for qualifying energy projects. There are over 70 different tax credits that are in the act. Some of them are continuations of previous tax credits, some are new. The tax credits can be realized in two different ways. One's an investment tax credit, which you can realize upon completion of a project for the portion of the project that qualifies. The other is a production tax credit, which you could realize over an annual basis for a period of time.

(03:21)

Most of these tax credits are around until 2032. Although for the investment tax credit, the amount of the credit that's available starts to reduce starting in 2025. So Congress and the administration really put a focus on identifying projects that can be built now for benefit of the municipal market and for the economy. I'm talking about these projects. What do I mean? Basically renewables includes wind, solar, hydro, biogas, combined heat and power projects, geothermal carbon capture, electric vehicles in other low carbon fuels for with the tax credits are available to public sector. Again, for most of the projects there is a base 6% tax credit of projects. So 6% of your project is eligible for the tax credit. However, if you comply with prevailing wage rates and apprenticeship requirements, you multiply that by five. So right off the bat you get a 30% tax credit.

(04:14)

Again, if you assume that you're going to comply with prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements, there's adders that get added on top of that 30% based upon where the project is completed. Energy communities, low income areas and other domestic areas can also increase the amount of that tax credit. There is a deduct that if your project is financed with tax exempt bond proceeds, you may have to subtract some of that credit. That formula has a maximum deduction of 15%, but depending upon the funding mix, that deduct could be anywhere from two to three to 5%. But again, it's capped at 15%.

(04:51)

One another example of how Congress really promoted the projects to take jump and get going right off the bat is that for the prevailing wage rate and apprenticeship, I mentioned there's a qualifier there of five times, if you had those provisions. You can get that same five time multiplier if you have a project that is ready to begun construction within 59 days after the rules are finalized. So if you have a project that's ready to begin construction, probably in early 2023, you can still get that five times multiplier without complying with prevailing wage rate and apprenticeship requirements. So Congress again is really focusing on getting money out the door as soon as possible. With respect to that, I mentioned tax credits, I mentioned annual payments and a lot of us in the room have said, "I've heard that before, build America Bonds, you're going to pay me on an annual basis, sure you are."

(05:43)

Congress did take some steps, and the way this legislation is written is that underneath current law, it'll be difficult if not impossible, but never say impossible with the government, difficult for sequestration to apply to the tax credits that are available underneath this inflation reduction Act. They're more of a rebate, I guess, is the way the legislation was written. So that was my first response, I've heard this story before, but it does seem that Congress did hear someone in the concerns with sequestration from Bill America Bonds and has built in some provisions to protect us protect issuers from sequestration and reducing these tax credits after you plan for them. So that's just a quick summary of some of the public benefits in the inflation reduction Act. Now we're just going to have a little Q & A and talk about some of more of the details as to what the ACT includes and how we got there. So right, I'll start with you. How did we get to where we are today? I mean the discussions was Bill back better what was removed to get us to this inflation reduction act?

Brett Bolton (06:43):

It's been a long and winding road. Infrastructure week was a running joke I think throughout the Trump administration into the beginning of the biting administration. But I'll take you back to, I won't take you back to the election of 2020. I don't think I want to relive it and I doubt few do. But early 2021, it was supposed to be a two step process build back better would be the Democrat only spending. Bill will say that included a lot of infrastructure spending as well as the bipartisan infrastructure bill that I believe the final name was the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. So I want to start there. In the Muni advocacy committee, we remain focused on five or six key priorities. So that's the read statement of advance for funding tax exempt to advance for funding, excuse me raising the bank qualified debt limit up to 30 million in tie to inflation expand usage and caps and work to ensure that any new direct pay bond program much like David said, would be exempt from sequestration and be a worthwhile product.

(07:38)

Long story short we ran into some political headwinds in the Senate especially around advanced refundings. There was a lot of pushback since that was removed in the 2017 tax bill and we could not get enough Republican support to include that in the bipartisan bill, even though it's a very bipartisan provision. Then some more issues with the direct pay pay bond program, which I believe they were calling the American infrastructure of bill. The reimbursement rate, there could never be an agreed upon number. The house provided a varied approach, I think 35% to 24% and that the Senate was going to come down around 28% just because of budgetary reasons and I don't think there was a lot of issue support for that because of the low reimbursement rate. So that also got removed. What we ended up with was a 1 trillion bill. It passed in November 21, I believe, was when it was signed into law.

(08:33)

It expanded PAS slightly carbon capture and real broadband, I believe were the two provisions as well. Doubled the highway cap to 30 billion, I believe is the number off the top of my head, which steps in the right direction. But it left the community and anybody in the muni community community, a little bit lackluster finish there. So we turned our approach to build back better. As we know, Democrats had slim majorities in both the house and the Senate takes the vice president to pass anything in the Senate along party lines. So it was going to be a long road ahead. Ms. Terry Sewell in the house she's on ways and means. She developed a great package that included all the priorities I mentioned earlier. Again, that's the reinstatement of tax exempt advancer, fundings raise and cap BQ debt limit created the new direct pay bond and as well expanded further PAP usage that passed the house and then got stripped out in the Senate.

(09:34)

Senator Mansion became a household name, I think throughout the country as well as Houston Cinema, who I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later on. Because of the corporate minimum tax over a 6 to 12 month period, they got their wishes. The build back better was cut in half basically, or down from 2.2 to 1.75 focusing on climate and healthcare major majority of the bill all the muni provisions were stripped. Fast forward another couple months, it got cut in half, basically again around another one point trillion of spending paid for by the corporate minimum book tax. I know that the panel is going to talk about that a little bit further, but a couple key points that are still ongoing. They wrote that law very vaguely. There is some thought legal minds much smarter than mine that there could be some work done at treasury to pull back a little there and maybe munies could be removed. I think it's a long shot at this juncture, but I do know that those conversations are ongoing. But that's kind of what we've looked at over the past two years on how we got to where we are today.

David Erdman (10:42):

Thank you. Eric you want to go in a little bit more details as to how this trillion dollars or whoever the amount is going to be funded?

Eric Friedland (10:50):

Yes, one of the things I can talk about also is not only how it's been funded, but what kind of impact it's going to have on issuance and also on demand, cause I think it will have have an impact in both of those areas and one of the things is think first about issuance. I do think over the medium term, maybe not the short term, but definitely the medium term it should definitely spurred. As a bond insurer, I certainly hope that's the case. As David mentioned what this really does is it levels the renewable energy playing field for municipalities and really puts them in the driver's seat coz it changes the way municipalities can structure and finance their renewable energy projects. As David mentioned, local governments can now access renewable energy incentives directly as a means for financing projects that have been historically unavailable to them.

(11:42)

Historically, development of renewable energy projects has been driven by federal and state incentives, including federal tax credits. Since municipalities and other 501 C3 entities don't pay taxes, they haven't been able to take advantage of many of these incentives directly. As a result, most projects have been structured and financed through private ownership, at least for a period of time in order to fully capture the benefit of the tax credits. It's interesting to think about the fact that wind and solar accounted for nearly 14% of total US generating capacity in 2010, but only 0.9% and 0.5% was owned by public power systems or electric cooperatives. The newly created provisions of this act can certainly change this now as a new alternative that allows municipalities and tax exempt organizations to access certain incentives directly through the receipt of direct payments from the US Treasury and lieu of receiving tax credits.

(12:37)

The question is, how is this really going to work? The amount of the credit will be paid to municipality or tax identity when they make an election to receive the credit on a filing made in the year in which the project is placed into service. Cities that own their own public utilities such as Cleveland, Columbia, and Tallahassee will now be able to transfer tax credits for cash. Cities in competitive markets, such as Chicago can utilize power purchase agreements to purchase a hundred percent clean energy, taking advantage of lower costs and greater availability of renewable resources. The one thing to watch out for which David mentioned was is the sequestration that we saw under Build America Bonds. But as David mentioned, there are some structural differences in the way this has been drafted that may protect us from that. How is this going to be funded? There are a few different ways that the funding is going to come about.

(13:27)

One of the new and Chief Revenue projection provisions is the 15% minimum tax on corporate book income for corporations with average annual adjusted financial statement income that exceeds a billion dollars for any three consecutive prior tax years. That's going to raise about 313 billion out of the total 675 billion that's being raised through the IRA. The two other provisions are costs that'll be saved from the drug prescription, drug program and then also the expansion of Medicaid Medicare. So the question is whether a meaningful portion of the municipal buyers will be affected whether demand for many bonds will remain as strong because of this. The first thing I'd mention is that since individual taxes are not being changed, should not really change the behavior of retail investors, which account for a majority, 70% of the investment base. Corporate buyers only make up about 27% of muni holdings, though many whole taxable as well as tax exempt munis.

(14:31)

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that only about 150 companies are going to be affected by the new book tax, nearly half of which are in the manufacturing sector. On the muni side, the corporate owners are really banks, insurance companies, and property and casualty insurers. Citi and one of their research pieces estimated that the minimum rate will only apply to seven life insurance companies, 16 banks and 11 P and C companies that are muni holders. What's important to keep in mind is that the large central money banks generally have tax rates between 17 and 20%, while regional banks have rates between 18 and 21%, because these bank tax rates are already above 15%, the new minimum tax is unlikely to impact them too much insurance companies, which hold about 5% of muni holdings appear to have lower effective tax rates and therefore maybe closer to triggering the new tax. Whereas most likely is that they'll only be a small number of corporate issuers, large insurance companies or banks that no longer see the value in mini tax exemptions. So overall, I think there's going to be more issuance, but demand profile isn't going to be changed that much.

David Erdman (15:36):

Thank you. Maria, as the issuer on the panel in lay of the public SEC sector benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act what's your entity doing to adjust its capital planning or issuance to take advantage of these benefits?

Maria McCarthy (15:51):

In all likely, there will probably be some adjustments to it. My organization is the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company. We are a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, formed under chapter 775 of the mass journal laws back in 1975. So we're a project based joint action agency. We work very closely with the municipal light departments across the commonwealth of Massachusetts to make sure that they are getting what they need for their rate payers. Since our formation in 1975, we've issued over 7 billion in debt issuance. And really what it's going to do is going to make us take a look at whether we go through the power purchase agreement route, the PPA route, or do we look more towards project ownership ourselves. The benefits from the IRA are really making us look more towards leaning towards project ownership ourselves and taking the benefits directly ourselves instead of going through a third party PPA where they're getting the benefits and possibly passing them on to us. So even though we don't really have a capital budget perse, if we lean more towards project ownership, we would be looking more to issue municipal debt going forward.

David Erdman (17:09):

Eric and Brett, I guess start off with you. What challenges either operationally or tax or otherwise do you see that municipal issuers will have in taking advantage of the inflation reduction ACT provisions?

Eric Friedland (17:23):

I think, that it's going to be very challenging. A lot of the rules still haven't been written yet. Just trying to apply for some of the grants is going to be a pretty complex process. Then also the entities are going to have to think about whether they want to take advantage of the production tax credit or the investment tax credit. They're going to have to look at just what the different consumer incentives are and how that will affect how much of the tax credit they're going to be able to take advantage of. In addition, they have to think about stack opportunities. Again, there are a lot of different type of incentives that and rewards that they're going to be eligible for. Some can be in combinations, some cannot. And one of the things we'll have to think about also is there are bonus credits being offered for purchasing and procuring materials that are from companies that are located in the us whether a project is cited in an area which has been determined to be sort of a high need low wealth area, and then also whether the companies that provide the materials are adhering to prevailing wage and labor practices.

(18:46)

So again, a lot of rules still need to be written. It's going to be a very complex process and I think a lot of these municipalities are going to need to hire some type of advisor to help them work through this maze.

Brett Bolton (18:59):

I'm just third person, we don't represent issuers, but from what I'm hearing, much like you discussed there, the rule making process has been erratic and pretty quick in certain circumstances and they've really struggled with that. Applying on time submitting comments on time, as well as just the incredible amount of new money and new projects that have been thrown their way over the past two years. I think it's little fast and outside council and resources will need to be used to ensure that all programs are utilized, I think fully and that's been a big issue.

David Erdman (19:30):

It's a unique opportunity, but it's a unique mix of blocking and tackling a public finance that issuers are used to now adding the utility focus and a certain tax review. It's a different tax review than issuers have had to go through in the past. The other challenge, depending upon the project size and the issuer size is the investment tax credit isn't available, isn't going to get paid to you until the tax year in which your project's placed in the service. So you're going to have to advance those funds in some means in order to complete the project before you get reimbursed from the federal government for that. So Maria, anything else that your team has identified as being a challenge for.

Maria McCarthy (20:07):

No, I think there's so much question around which way to go. Do we have the opportunity of doing either tax exempt or taxable? So I think it's, it's going to be a project by project kind of play for us to try to determine based on each project, which makes more sense. If the IRA definitely shortens the supply of tax exempt in the market, then it makes our paper look a lot more in demand if we do go the tax exempt route. So it's something for us to definitely consider and things that we have to work out with our financial advisors and tax committee groups to really just determine what makes the most sense.

David Erdman (20:47):

The other challenge that I see is there's a lot of money and it's spread out amongst many federal agencies department of Treasury, department of Energy, Rural Development, USDA, all have a component or some aspects of writing rules and getting the money out the door for different programs. So it's going to require having a pretty good knowledge of where the funds are at the federal level. So Brett, I'll start with you on this question. The title of the act is the Inflation Reduction Act. Will this really have any impact on inflation?

Brett Bolton (21:17):

No, not immediately at least. I mean, what is it? Price capping for certain medications? There's some incentives to, I guess nationalize more energy production. But no, I can't foresee in the next six months this really helps any to be perfectly honest with you.

David Erdman (21:34):

Eric, any thoughts?

Eric Friedland (21:35):

I mean, I'm not an economist, so all my thoughts come from articles and that I looked at and other research that was done. But right after the act was passed most of what I read stated that it would not have any impact on inflation. One article was from the Penn Warden budget model. They said that they have low confidence the legislation will have any impact on inflation. The CBO did a study they said that the bill will barely make a dent on inflation in the near term, and that could even nudge it upward. The CBO estimated that it will have a negligible effect on inflation in 2022 and in 2023 it'll change inflation somewhere between 0.1 percentage point lower and 0.1 percentage point higher than it is currently. And even if it won't move the needle on inflation, the CBO also estimated that the bill will decrease the deficit by more than a hundred billion over the next decade. But that's only 4% of the total 2.8 trillion federal deficit. So that sounds like a no to me.

Brett Bolton (22:38):

It was a good PR move by Senate Democrats to name it that to get it pass. I mean, that's flatly what it was.

David Erdman (22:44):

Interesting, Maria, this question is to you how has your entity approached the current ESG discussions and will your entity kind of combine ESG along with your application of the provisions of this inflation reduction act?

Maria McCarthy (22:59):

So with our organization working with the municipal light departments across Massachusetts, Massachusetts has a 2050 climate roadmap bill, which means net zero by 2050. So it's something that our municipal light departments are really working towards, and we are looking for projects that are going to get them there. So ESG specifically around the environmental part hydro, wind, solar, those types of projects are really hitting the ESG portion of what folks are looking for, especially in Massachusetts to meet the 2050 net zero carbon. If we do win-win, we do issue debt for these projects, we would be looking at the potential for green bonds. Those are things, again, we would be reviewing and seeing whether or not those are beneficial. But when you're in a market where you have investors that are heavily looking to build a portfolio full of ESG friendly initiatives, being able to issue bonds, green bonds, things like that really focus on environmental, wind, solar hydro projects, things like that, make the issuance a little bit more in demand and of interest to folks.

David Erdman (24:12):

Thank you. Brett, question for you any hope for additional muni legislation this year? Infrastructure, or other? Do the midterm outcomes impact your predictions?

Brett Bolton (24:25):

I'm still trying to digest the midterm outcomes. I think especially in the house I think that UPS chances of something additional happening that's more substantial. You've got retiring former chair and current ranking member Kevin Brady on the house ways and means, it looks like still Chairman Richard Neal, former Massachusetts Mayor who's the current chair of the committee. He will likely be the ranking member next year. So what I've been told is they're looking for some type of compromise. I don't know exactly what it looks like but a legacy bill is being thrown around. I think that's a little bit dramatic, but again, I think the really tight margins in the house or the Senate make that a little bit more profitable, profitable in December, they have so many other big issues to attack first. So the National Defense Authorization Act has to pass, I believe by next week the budget runs out, I want to say December 16th, and then the lovely debt ceiling at some point in the next six months is going to have to be addressed.

(25:24)

I think that becomes an easier fight now that the margins are so narrow, Democrats and Republicans will likely be more likely to work together on that, hopefully to avoid the drama of a potential fiscal cliff. But again, that's a long wind up to say I think the doors slightly open for more tax provisions to pass this year. Whether that means munies are not, I don't know. I know that Chairman Neil would like that to happen, but it's yet to happen at this current date. So that's where it stands today. But it definitely has become a lot more interesting over the past week, that's for sure.

David Erdman (25:59):

We're going to take some time just to have some final comments from each of the panelists here and then we'll open it up for questions and answers. So be thinking about questions you may have for the panel. So I'll start with just some final statements. Again, obviously, I've mentioned that this is a great opportunity for the public sector wearing my state of Wisconsin hat when I wore that, I mean, we often looked at how we can get rid of our energy assets, kind of the opposite of what Maria had said. Saw that as being a cash drain and wanting to get rid of it. Never did that. But here's an opportunity for an issuer that the state of Wisconsin actually owns 28 power plants. Each of our campuses has a power plant. I say us, the state of Wisconsin has a power plant. So here's an opportunity for the state to take advantage of these tax credits to make significant changes that could be needed at these facilities.

(26:51)

And as Maria mentioned, still retain ownership in that asset. So obviously a great opportunity here. As I mentioned, timing is everything. These are tax credits that are out there right now, and you can maximize the amount of the credits by acting quick. So planning timing is going to be important to take advantage of this opportunity. I mentioned the tax credits are out there to 2032, but the amount of those tax credits decrease after 2025. So it's definitely something to take advantage of here in the next couple years. So just want to trust that for anyone who's working with municipal issuers. So Brett?

Brett Bolton (27:24):

As we've said here, it's been a constant flow of funds from the federal government over the past several years. At some point, Congress is going to find religion and we're going to start talking debt and deficits. I think that was a big concern of ours heading into a red LA wave type election that didn't quite materialize. So instead of looking at cutting the tax exemption in the next two or four years, I think this pushes that conversation at least beyond the 2024 presidential elections, unless republicans really can ramp up some margins during that election. So that's something we've been looking and something we've been really concerned about, but I think it brings up the good opportunity for this group to change the subject from me funding to financing on Capitol Hill. That's something we're going to continue to work on and educate members and their staff that that's a proper next step if we're going to get away from the free flowing federal funds.

David Erdman (28:16):

Related to tax exemption, I just want to highlight that there is the DDOT, where you lose some credit for doing tax exempt financing obviously in a different interest rate environment, doing taxable financing for these projects may have been attractive, but I think the amount of the deduct is, it's going to be minimal compared to the 15% that people thought. But the bomb buyer ran an editorial or a news story a couple weeks ago about academic world taking a look at how the Inflation reduction Act could have an impact on the market and reducing the importance of tax exemption. I personally just don't see that happening. I think the deduct for the tax exempt financing is going to be small enough that using tax exempt bonds for these projects is still going to be the main ways in which these projects are going to be financed. So not sure if you got any thoughts on that, Brett or not.

Brett Bolton (29:01):

That was also said after 2017 with increase in taxable refundings, or at least that was what I kept hearing. But no, I don't think that's going to have a direct impact on the strength of the tax exemption. I think that argument, at least in DC, is going to come down to how much does it cost the federal budget. We're not looking too in depth with that type stuff up here.

David Erdman (29:22):

Maria has some federal comments?

Maria McCarthy (29:24):

I think with the IRA, there's more questions than answers. I think right now, I think there's a lot of moving parts. The IRS was still taking comments on it through November 4th, I believe, and we're waiting to hear some responses and results from that. But right now it seems like there's definitely a lot more collaboration and discussion. I think that needs to go around it and understanding project by project, what's really going to apply and what's not. So I think it's just really good to stay in tune to what's coming and the IRS rulings and things that are coming.

Eric Friedland (30:04):

I mean, what I think about is how frustrating it's been to read about green hydrogen battery storage small scale nuclear. These are all technologies that are out there but haven't been economical. So the fact that now that you have this direct tax credit that municipalities can take advantage of that they never could take advantage of before, and the fact that you have tax credits that can be very meaningful if you sort stack the incentives on top of each other. If you get components from the United States rather than abroad. If you adhere to certain labor issues, if you work in certain communities, these tax credits can be really, really high and can make projects seem a lot more economical. So again, I think, as I mentioned, because there is a lot of red tape, a lot of rules haven't been written yet. A lot of hurdles to go through. I don't see this changing meaningfully next year, but maybe in three to five years we can start seeing some of these technologies come to fruition and then have municipalities actually leverage these credits and issue more muni bonds to support it. So again, I'm hopeful, but we'll see .

David Erdman (31:19):

Related to that, we've really focused on the public sector benefits, the inflation reduction act the funding also expands tax credits on the private side which as you work with a community for economic development, could be a means in order to leverage these benefits as the developer could maybe get some tax credits from the projects within their own private project that could help the community. So just want to high, that also. Questions from the audience and you may have to stand up cuz these lights are bright.

Maria McCarthy (31:53):

I think there's a question here.

David Erdman (31:54):

Now we'll be able to know where the questions are coming from.

Audience Member 1 (32:00):

Hi, thank you. My name is Pam Gas and I work with a lot of developers, as you mentioned putting in public infrastructure through some form of a district. And one of the issues we see so often is with the alternative energies, they're frequently not publicly owned and through the districts it's very difficult to financing them, finance them. Then some districts have the ability to issue taxable bonds, but a lot of them. But have you seen any kind of a structure for alternative energy where it's developer based financing that and how you can maybe get some of the public entities to take ownership of that?

David Erdman (32:45):

-Good question. I'll start and someone else can fill in the blanks. I think with respect to the Inflation reduction Act, this is so new that we're not seeing the direct results of the inflation reduction act on that with developers you mentioned, what was the project again? Biogas?

Audience Member 1 (33:05):

Well, any of the could be any of the alternative energy sources that traditionally are not operated, at least in our area by public.

David Erdman (33:18):

The benefits of maybe public ownership of that is something that individual communities are going to have to look at case by case basis. I mean obviously the tax credit is great right now, but the tax credit's only going to last for a little bit of time. You still have the operation cost and other enhancements are going to get into that facility going forward. So not sure if this inflation reduction app will provide enough of the carrot in order to convert everything over to a public sector utility to do that. But again, some of the additional benefits that are in the inflation reduction Act for tax credits for developers like electric car charging stations and so forth. I mean, there's ways maybe to benefit some of those tax credits to help with the develop overall development equation. So anyone else have any thoughts?

Audience Member 1 (34:02):

I think covered well.

David Erdman (34:05):

Other questions? And again, we can't see you, so raise your hand and the person of the mic will get us in the right direction. We can talk about the rebate. Packers winning yesterday, rare this year.

(34:27)

All of us will be available throughout the entire conference. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and ask us. Otherwise, I thank the Bond Buyer for having this panel and the information that we were able to communicate through the panel. Thank my panelists for their thoughts and words and thank all of you for attending and listening.

Audience Member 1 (34:53):

Thank you.