MuniLand

There is a general consensus that America needs both new infrastructure and more jobs. Where there’s disagreement is over what role the federal government should play in providing the necessary funding to jump-start new projects. In a recent webinar, Standard & Poor’s laid out the current types of financing available for surface transporation projects (page 3):

• General Obligation Bonds (Appropriation debt)
• Sales Tax Revenue Bonds
• Gas Tax Revenue Bonds
• Toll Revenue Bonds
• Federal Grant-Secured Obligations (GANs/GARVEEs)
• Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loans
• Public Private Partnerships (P3)

The top five categories in the list above are types of municipal bonds, meaning that they require a local or state government to take on debt to fund infrastructure. At the level of federal financing, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration gives out TIFIA loans to public-and-private infrastructure projects. For example, the Macquarie-owned public-private partnerships that are building the Midtown Tunnel in the Norfolk and Hampton Bays area of Virginia and the FasTracks rail project in Denver are using federal TIFIA loans in the funding pool.

I don’t really understand why the FHA’s TIFIA program favors private investment. Here’s what the FHA website says (emphasis mine):

The program’s fundamental goal is to leverage Federal funds by attracting substantial private and other non-Federal co-investment in critical improvements to the nation’s surface transportation system. TIFIA was created because state and local governments that sought to finance large-scale transportation projects with tolls and other forms of user-backed revenue often had difficulty obtaining financing at reasonable rates due to the uncertainties associated with these revenue streams.

Across the nation cash-strapped municipalities are considering the sale of their public-utility systems. These moves are intended to raise cash and rid the municipalities of expensive liabilities such as debt service and pension obligations. But officials considering this approach might do well to look to France and other nations that are rapidly moving in the opposite direction with a “remunicipalization” of their utility systems. In 2010, Paris, in the best known case of remunicipalization, ended contracts with the world’s two biggest water service companies, Suez and Veolia, bringing an end to their 100-year private duopoly. The reversal of a century-old practice in Paris was an acceleration of an international movement away from private control. Per remunicipalisation.org:

In the 1990s many countries privatised their water and sanitation services, particularly in the [hemispheric] South, as a result of strong pressure from neoliberal mindset governments and international financial institutions, to ‘open’ up national services.

The promises that privatisation would improve the provision of drinking and wastewater services soon faltered. Many of the privatised operations quickly began to show weaknesses as they missed targets for expanding and upgrading networks, introduced excessive tariff increases alongside connection fees which were unaffordable for low-income families. Management activities were not transparent and accountable. As a result numerous contracts with private operators were terminated often following popular unrest. Many cities, regions and even countries have chosen to close the book on water privatisation and instead embarked on remunicipalisation or renationalisation of water delivery

Two major American cities are embarking on large capital programs, but in very different ways. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has a $1.8 billion, five-year plan that he will fund with municipal bonds, while Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to push a $7 billion plan, which will be paid for by private investors, through the city council. It would be hard to find to two more dissimilar approaches to rebuilding America’s urban infrastructure or two more different lists of who will reap the monetary benefit of the improvements.

Boston approaches its infrastructure needs with a rolling five-year schedule of projects that is updated on an annual basis. This allows for more controlled expensing and planning. In contrast, Chicago’s Emanuel announced his infrastructure privatization plan in January with very few details and buy-in only from the private investors who will benefit from their involvement. The Chicago proposal gives control of infrastructure decisions to a panel of four private citizens and one city council member with no ability for the city council to have oversight on projects and contracts. Chicago has a terrible history of leaving taxpayer money on the table in its privatization efforts. In 2008 the city’s parking meters were leased out to private investors for a tiny sum:

Chicago drivers will pay a Morgan Stanley-led partnership at least $11.6 billion to park at city meters over the next 75 years, 10 times what Mayor Richard Daley got when he leased the system to investors in 2008.

The battle to privatize America’s public assets had a big win when the Newport News Daily Press reported:

The governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell announced Monday that a deal with private construction consortium Elizabeth River Crossings to build a new Midtown Tunnel tube; refurbish the existing facility along with the Downtown Tunnel; and expand the Martin Luther King Freeway has reached a financial close.

The project, which is now owned by Australian infrastructure company Macquarie, will add another tunnel under the Elizabeth River to relieve congestion in the Norfolk and Hampton Roads area. Getting control of the project will bring in rich rewards for Macquarie and its construction partner Skanska. For an equity investment of $208 million, Macquarie stands to realize over $5 billion in cash flow over the 58-year concession after repayment of bonds, loans and mandated capital expenditures.

Reuters ran a piece yesterday that caught my eye: “Macquarie eyes $2 billion North American infrastructure fund: sources.” According to the article, Macquarie, the Australian company active in infrastructure privatization, wanted to leverage its prior American success as it begins to raise funds:

Macquarie has also proved successful in bidding for the few new assets on the market. It was behind the largest U.S. infrastructure deals of the last two years – a $2.1 billion project to build and operate commuter rail lines to Denver International Airport and a $1.7 billion upgrade of a tunnel between the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth in Virginia.

The privatization of American infrastructure has become a hot topic, despite the lack of notable success stories. The Macquarie project building and operating commuter rail lines to Denver International Airport illustrates the costs associated with this approach. The project is not doing very well: Because of cost overruns, its budget was recently revised upward, to $7.8 billion.

Fracking is under increased scrutiny in the U.S. and in Australia, in the state of New South Wales. Both nations have undertaken studies to examine the effect of fracking on groundwater supplies. But there are other potential socialized costs that need to be included in these public studies, including the possible cost of wastewater treatment plants, damage to local roads, air and water pollution and the linkages to earthquakes. The costs of these possible side effects to local communities may exceed the gains they’ll receive from extraction royalties and increased tax revenues. We need some accounting.

In the U.S. the Environmental Protection Agency has begun a study on fracking and water supplies, and it released a status report in December 2011. The EPA anticipates a first round of results by the end of 2012 and a final report to be released in 2014. The agency has conducted literature reviews, requested data from manufacturers of fracking fluids and scheduled case studies with landowners. It also released a startling preliminary report on possible groundwater contamination in Wyoming.  From USA Today:

The EPA found that compounds likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals. Health officials last year advised them not to drink their water after the EPA found low levels [of] hydrocarbons in their wells.

It seems like foreign governments and corporations are craving U.S. public assets like toll roads, electrical grids and railways. In the case of our largest creditor, the Chinese government, they don’t want any more U.S. Treasuries, but they do want to own the hard assets that comprise our nation’s infrastructure.

Reuters Beijing bureau reported:

China may channel part of its huge pool of foreign exchange reserves into investment in U.S. infrastructure, including rail and transportation networks, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said on Friday.

“China is unwilling to take on too much U.S. government debt. We are willing to turn that money into investment,” he told U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke and U.S. businessmen.

Thumbs down on President Obama’s infrastructure bank

The Bond Buyer is reporting that U.S. transporation groups have given the thumbs down to President Obama’s proposed infrastructure bank. The core repayment mechanism for loans guaranteed by the proposed bank would be user fees and tolls. This contrasts to the current methods, which involve state and local governments borrowing in the municipal market to fund projects or the federal government collecting gasoline taxes to fund highway infrastructure. Given the growing opposition globally to the privatization of public assets, the core purpose of the infrastructure bank is bound to create more unease among public players and citizens. From the Bond Buyer:

American Trucking Associations president Bill Graves was skeptical.

“We’ve long advocated that roads and bridges should be paid for primarily by their users, through the most direct taxes possible: fuel taxes,” he said. “Allowing private capital to take their cut as part of an infrastructure bank, or by taxing other sectors to pay for roads and bridges, takes us further away from this core principle.”

Direct grants to state and local govts most popular part of Obama’s jobs bill

The first time many heard about the United States creating a infrastructure bank was in President Obama’s Thursday speech, but the idea has actually been floating around Congress for a number of years. Former U.S. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut proposed the idea in 2007 with inauspicious timing. From the American Water Works Association:

In an eerie coincidence, legislation to create a National Infrastructure Bank to address the need for financing of infrastructure projects was introduced with bipartisan support in the US Senate the same day a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis.

The horrific 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis is often used as the poster child to promote a national infrastructure bank. In 2007 there were 75,000 other bridges in America that had the same rating of “structurally deficient” as the Minneapolis bridge; the problem continues today. The need for massive spending on our roads and bridges is well understood by everyone.

Paul Krugman at the New York Times has a good graph that shows a substantial withdrawal of government demand from the economy. He attributed this to the decline of federal government stimulus to state and local governments as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act winds down. There is also another factor that is reducing government demand: state and local governments are issuing less debt, which in turn creates fewer building projects and construction jobs.

Municipal bond issuance is about $108 billion less this year than the same period in 2010. Several stories today highlight how states and cities continue to face fiscal challenges that cause them to lower the amount of municipal bonds that they issue for infrastructure projects.

Does reduced state and local infrastructure spending suggest a rationale for increased national infrastructure spending as hinted at by President Obama? Will his proposal be big enough to make up the shortfall of municipal spending on infrastructure? From Bloomberg: