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In mid-February I posed the question: Will WH FY27 Budget Show EPA WIFIA Estimated FY26 Mandatory Spending Over $1 Billion?
Well, the answer is ‘yes’. The WH FY27 Budget, including technical appendices, was released this morning. The estimate for WIFIA FY26 mandatory spending is $1.03b, making the Program’s total since operations began about $3.1b.
It seems from other sections in the WIFIA budget that expected disbursements in FY26 are about $5b, so I think the total amount of drawn loans from the $26b loan commitment portfolio will be about $15b by FYE26. The $3.1b of funding losses is therefore about 20% of disbursements, the same rate as FY23-FY25. As a percentage of total loan commitments, however, funding losses are now 12% of commitments, up from 9% before.
Not pretty, but all much as expected. Other items for WIFIA:
- As with the WH FY26 Budget, the proposed level of discretionary funding for the next fiscal year is only $8m for administration, doubtless based on the same argument that the Program has plenty of carryover funding.
- The White House is even more right about that this year — of the $65m or so appropriated in FY25, only about $20m was utilized, and OMB expects the same usage rate for the FY26 pointless appropriations, so the carryover for FYE27 is estimated at a whopping $421m. The implied new loan commitment volume is only about $2b per year, or maybe even somewhat less if recent apportionment trends to higher risk WIFIA loans that are surfacing continue (that’ll be a topic for a future post).
- Still, that big carryover could be the basis for continuing operations, without the need for further appropriations, for a reformed WIFIA — that is, correct FCRA budgeting for predictable funding losses and a move into the type of loans that actually accomplish real-world policy objectives. The money is already there — use it to prove that WIFIA really is a critical program for US water infrastructure renewal, without ‘narrative’ bullshit or off-budget games, and that’ll be the basis for a much higher level of funding in the future.
Meanwhile, for SRFs it looks like the same song as in the FY26 budget — I’ve yet to get to the numbers, but here’s the FY27 Budget statement:
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More on all this to come.