The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee is expected to mark up a Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) reauthorization this week that includes a title creating a Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) pilot program.
The text of the bill had not been made public as of Friday afternoon, but congressional staff told AMWA that the latest version will build on draft legislation that EPW Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) circulated last November. That bill proposed a WIFIA pilot program that would have allowed EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to each offer up to ten WIFIA loans to water projects with price tags exceeding $20 million.
According to congressional staff who have seen the updated draft, the new bill does away with the ten-project limit, thereby expanding the potential scope of the pilot program. The bill will still restrict funding to projects expected to cost more than $20 million and will allow EPA to offer the loans directly to utilities, without routing the dollars through state SRF programs.
As of Friday afternoon, it was unclear whether the new version maintained several provisions from the November draft about which AMWA had expressed concerns. These included barring WIFIA loans from funding more than 49 percent of a project’s total cost and directing EPA to give funding preference to projects that “would foster innovative public-private partnerships and attract private debt or equity investment.” The source of initial funding for WIFIA is also unclear.
The EPW Committee’s consideration of a WIFIA pilot program comes about a month after Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) sponsored a stand-alone WIFIA bill (S. 335) that included an open-ended authorization. Sen. Merkley is a member of the EPW Committee and is now expected to back the effort to advance WIFIA as a pilot program.
The EPW Committee is tentatively scheduled to mark up the proposal on Wednesday, March 20.