As expected from the earlier budget summary, CWIFP’s proposed FY 2026 budget is just flatlined — no new resources.

I’d like to see how the transportation loan program, TIFIA, is faring. It wasn’t mentioned in the budget summary. But to be honest, I can’t make head or tail of what’s in the Technical Supplement. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can’t tell what TIFIA gets — this from an Eno Center March 2025 article, The FY25 Year-Long CR: What’s in It, and What’s Not:

The $50 million for the formula bridge program at FHWA will once again be matched by $200 million transferred from the TIFIA contract authority program to the same bridge program, as happened in 2024. But between then and now, the 2024 WRDA bill transferred an additional $1.8 billion in TIFIA contract authority to the regular federal-aid highway formulas. That adds up to $2.2 billion transferred out of the TIFIA program in just over a year. No one outside DOT is quite sure exactly how much TIFIA funding is left. This new $200 million transfer will almost completely eliminate the new funding provided for TIFIA by the IIJA for 2025 ($250 million gross, lopped off by the annual obligation limitation to around $200 million. The list of projects expecting TIFIA loans in 2025 is now long and getting longer.

Perhaps to be clear about resources for federal infrastructure loan programs, you need to be clear about what the programs are meant to accomplish — you know, to put the request in context. As yet, that hasn’t been done, but in all the upheaval, I think it needs to get done soon. Such programs might come in mighty handy in certain economic conditions and even to achieve certain ideological objectives, as in ‘facilitate local funding for local infrastructure’ — that’s sufficiently Project 2025-ish, no? It’d be a shame if they all just got chain-sawed away or hijacked for high-risk P3 project finance. Just saying.