AASHTO Journal, 29 July 2011
Looking to leverage private investment and an untapped market for tax-credit bonding to rebuild America’s transportation infrastructure, Sens. Ron Wyden, John Hoeven, and Mark Begich have introduced legislation to create a program called Transportation and Regional Infrastructure Project bonds — or TRIP for short. The program would replace a previous one known as Build America Bonds, which expired last year.”Recent experience has demonstrated that the private sector has considerable resources for funding infrastructure projects that are currently going untapped,” Wyden, D-Oregon, said in a statement released by the three senators. “TRIPs will build on recent experience with tax-credit bonds and leverage private funding in a fair and efficient [manner] that has been proven to save taxpayer money. With TRIPs, we not only create the financing tool but a mechanism for states to allocate the funding in a fair and equitable way without ignoring the needs of larger, more costly projects.”