Posted: | February 5, 2020 04:42 PM |
---|---|
From: | Representative Ryan Warner |
To: | All House members |
Subject: | County Infrastructure Banks |
In the near future, I plan on introducing legislation that would allow county infrastructure banks to apply for loans from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank. Currently, the money within the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank is appropriated by PennDOT for financing transportation related projects. However, it was never authorized to make direct loans to a county infrastructure bank or provide special terms and lower interest rates that are otherwise unavailable to a county infrastructure bank. My legislation would task PennDOT to develop eligibility requirements and processes for county infrastructure banks to apply for loans that are intended to fund large transportation projects. However, my legislation requires a county infrastructure bank that applies for such a loan to submit a thirty-year infrastructure plan to ensure the loan will be used exclusively for qualified projects. This also allows PennDOT to have a more concise understanding of the type of project the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank will be financing. By providing county infrastructure banks with special terms and lower interest rates for transportation projects, the county banks will be able to complete large scale projects they wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise, and the State’s bank can gain revenue through interest on the loans. My legislation is part of the House Transportation Task Force’s package of bills that is responsible for finding innovative ways for the Commonwealth to fund transportation, while also ensuring the current funding sources to transportation are as effective as possible. I hope you join me in sponsoring this important piece of transportation related legislation. |
Introduced as HB2064