Infrastructure investment and spending in the United States and the state of its roads, bridges and more has been a much discussed topic for more than a decade, but without the results many have hoped for. On Tuesday, Jan. 30, in his State of the Union address, President Trump outlined plans for a new infrastructure program that invites private capital to participate and streamlines the regulatory process. But the outline is just that, an outline, and now the plan will move on to the Congress, where legislators will see if they can work out a bill that satisfies the various interests.
The core of President Trump’s proposal is the aforementioned regulatory streamlining and a $1.5 trillion plan to engage federal, state and local governments and private capital. The proposal includes a rural infrastructure plan to encourage freight movement and to improve transportation, as well as a “transformative projects” plan that offers federal funding and technical assistance for “innovative and transformative infrastructure projects,” the plan notes. “Applicable projects must be exploratory and ground-breaking ideas that have more risk than standard infrastructure projects, but offer a larger reward profile.”
“Streamlining the environmental review and permitting process, incentivizing financial participation by the private sector and state and local governments and providing new funding for different types of infrastructure to address local needs are all good concepts that Congress likely will seriously consider in drafting infrastructure legislation,” says Susan Lent, partner at law firm Akin Gump.
Some regulatory streamlining, outside the President’s infrastructure plan, has already taken place, in particular in energy markets where approvals for projects are taking less time. But the process for approval can take up to five to eight years or more, which scares off investment that might otherwise commit. The expectation is that a new infrastructure bill can reduce this time, bring in more investment capital and get infrastructure working for people sooner.