The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is on track to issue the first loans through the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) pilot program during the 2017 fiscal year, an EPA official told attendees of AMWA’s Water Policy Conference last week.
Raffael Stein, director of the Municipal Support Division in EPA’s Office of Water, said EPA has developed tentative WIFIA application materials and is in the process of refining the criteria the agency will use to evaluate project applications. Stein said EPA intends to propose a rule for WIFIA implementation before the end of the current fiscal year in September, and the Obama Administration will allow the agency to begin soliciting and awarding WIFIA loans before the final WIFIA rule is in place. This will enable EPA to make the first WIFIA loans during FY17, provided that Congress fulfills the Obama Administration’s FY17 budget request to appropriate WIFIA loan funding next year.
Stein also told the Water Policy Conference that EPA is preparing a “hurry-up offense” to have WIFIA operational even sooner in the event that Congress approves emergency legislation in response to the Flint water crisis. A bill pending in the Senate would “jump start” WIFIA with a $70 million appropriation, and Stein said EPA will be ready to implement the program on an expedited basis should that proposal become law in the coming months.