Today, a quick blog on the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) transportation credit assistance program, which provides loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit for surface transportation projects with total costs of $50 million and above ($25 million for rural projects).
When Congress approved a new surface transportation law, known as “MAP-21,” a number of observers doubted that the TIFIA credit program was going to be able to spend the huge windfall it is now set to receive annually ($750 million in FY13 and $1 billion in FY14) when previously it had had trouble spending $122 million annually. In fact, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee regularly targeted TIFIA for rescission, because they had so much unspent funding.
As if to prove those naysayers wrong, DOT has been sending out regular reports about renewed interest in the TIFIA program from all over the country. Yesterday, Secretary LaHood wrote a blog touting that DOT has received 11 letters of interest for new TIFIA loans (which is the first step in the TIFIA process). We’ll continue to follow the expansion of the program and provide regular updates on progress.
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