Turnabout is fair play, no? The 2020 FCRA Criteria for WIFIA loans to cost-shares in federally involved projects were (in theory) a response to an ambiguity in FCRA law. So, now that huge levels of mandatory spending from interest rate re-estimates are surfacing at WIFIA, maybe it’s time to look at whether a FCRA law drafted in 1990 adequately anticipated WIFIA’s ‘unique’ borrower base, Aa3/AA- public water agencies with excellent access to the tax-exempt bond market. Perhaps the drafters couldn’t imagine the point of such a program, but that’s all history in our narrative neoliberal world — the orthodox narrative says WIFIA has real world outcomes that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and who are we to question this?
But still, the mandatory spending numbers are a bit…awkward. So, why doesn’t OMB just gin up a set of criteria to, you know, to ‘interpret’ (perhaps even in unusual and innovative ways!) the re-estimate parts of FCRA law, publish them as a ‘Notice’ in the Federal Register, and get Congress to tie appropriations to compliance.
No? Oh, I see — OMB distorting FCRA law is only to restrict WIFIA eligibility to the program’s current municipal water agency base, not for actual budget transparency or accurate representation of where taxpayer money is going, or anything as pedestrian as all that.
Maybe a different approach is required. Time for another 1967 Budget Commission Report on Federal Credit? Re-examine some basic questions?
Here’s the key question in the Gemini ‘discussion’ above (page 7):
For those interested in a more technical discussion, I did this essay a few years back — FCRA Re-Estimates and the Anti-Deficiency Act. As far as I can tell, current FCRA law for re-estimates does not align with the spirit of the Anti-Deficiency Act or the recommendations of the 1967 Budget Commission because it did not anticipate a loan program like WIFIA. Now that we have the evidence of WIFIA’s actual operations 2018-2025 and consequent mandatory spending 2022-2025, shouldn’t the law, or at least official rules governing its use, be updated? Or something? Anything — just not more goddamn narrative lies.