When lawmakers departed the Capitol last Friday to begin a one-week break, it marked the third recess of 2014 that began without a bicameral agreement on a new “Water Resources Development Act” (WRDA) or an update on the status of a proposed “Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act” (WIFIA).
House and Senate negotiators had originally hoped to agree on a compromise WRDA bill before the end of 2013, but updates on the state of negotiations have grown more scarce as the calendar has advanced further into 2014. More than a month ago Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told reporters that WRDA talks were “back on track,” but since that point little information about the status of the talks has been made public. Lawmakers involved in negotiations have generally avoided setting a new deadline to finish their work.
Sen. Boxer’s staff has told AMWA and other WIFIA supporters that she remains committed to including a version of the program within the final WRDA bill, but details are sketchy about how closely any included version may resemble the WIFIA pilot program that the Senate approved last year as part of its own WRDA bill. AMWA and others have requested several fixes to that language (such as removing provisions that would bar the use of tax-exempt bonds to pay for portions of WIFIA-funded projects), but WRDA negotiators do not appear to have discussed this issue in depth as of yet.
Earlier this month two House lawmakers began circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter in support of including WIFIA in the final WRDA bill, but a final version of the letter – for which they hoped to attract signatures from many other House members – still has not been made public.