Trump’s leaked infrastructure draft indicates White House intends to incentivize infrastructure funding

A draft of President Donald Trump’s national infrastructure plan was leaked to and reported on by Axios on Monday, showing how the White House intends to incentivize infrastructure funding by providing grants to state, local and private entities.

   A draft of President Donald Trump’s national infrastructure plan indicates the White House intends to incentivize infrastructure funding – including for maritime and inland waterway ports, airports and surface transportation – by providing grants to state, local and private entities.
   The draft, which was leaked to and reported on by Axios on Monday, indicates these planned incentive grants would account for half of total appropriations for all projects that would be eligible under the plan, and would be conditioned on achieving milestones within an identified timeframe.
   In addition to U.S. states and territories, eligible recipients could include metropolitan planning organizations, local and tribal governments, special purpose districts, nonprofits and public utilities.
   Outside of general infrastructure, the plan proposes to dedicate 10 percent of allocable funds under the plan for eligible “innovative and transformative projects” unable to get financing from the private sector because of the “uniqueness” of the program.
   The Commerce Department would oversee executive branch implementation of the “transformative projects” funding program.
   Funds under this proposed program could be provided for planning, construction, deployment, and evaluation of demonstration trials, and couldn’t be used for applied research and development activities, but could be used “where a prototype is operated at or near full scale.”
   Federal funding could be used for up to 30 percent of eligible costs incurred during this demonstration phase, and for up to 50 percent of eligible costs related to project planning, such as final design and engineering.
   The draft also sets aside 25 percent of funds for all eligible projects specifically for rural infrastructure to include ports, airports, rail, roads, bridges and waterways.
   These would be block grants required for use in areas with a population of less than 50,000, according to the draft.
   “We are not going to comment on the contents of a leaked document, but look forward to presenting our plan in the near future,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters said in an emailed statement.