This presentation was made by William Streeter, United States, at the 10th annual meeting of the OECD Network of Senior PPP and Infrastructure Officials held at the OECD Headquarters, Paris, on 21 March 2017
5. U.S. Government Initiatives to Incentivize Private Investment in Infrastructure
Trump Administration
• $1 Trillion infrastructure program TBD
• Cuts in environmental regulation to speed project approvals
Obama Administration (Build America Investment Initiative)
Resolved
• Simplification of regulatory assessments & approvals (harmonization Army Corp. & USDOT
environmental assessments
• Equal tax treatment of investment in real property between U.S. pension funds & foreign
investors
• Increase in limits of private activity bonds (tax-exemption)
Unresolved
• Pre-Development Funding
• Contract standardization (like UK) – 50 states
• Risk sharing for mega projects
• Bundling of projects – Connecticut Green Fund example
• Infrastructure return benchmarks
6. Individual Projects Scaling Up or Walking Past
Expectations:
Commercial Viability
Availability Payments
Rate of Return
Pendulum of
Support or Doubt,
Balance Sheet or
Not
Desire or Suspicion
for Foreign
Investment
Insistence and Disgust
with Bid Auction
Resources for
Committing to Direct
Investment;
Unbundling
Financing from
Procurement
Public & Private Sector
Misalignment of
Interest for Single
Projects
(stripping instead of
adding value)
Coalition Financing w/o
Seeding an Investment
Platform
Projects or
Companies with
Projects