Please note that NUCA will be charging a nominal registration fee ($125 for members, $225 for nonmembers) to help defray the costs associated with four networking events. This year, NUCA's annual national awards will be presented at a National Awards Breakfast included in the registration fee. Click here for the schedule of events.

 

Appointments with New Mexico's Delegation will be set prior to travel.  

Reprinted with permission from NUCA

The American Recovery and Investment Act is now the law of the land.  We can take pride in the fact that NUCA played an instrumental role from the outset in ensuring that substantial new utility infrastructure investments were included in the final package. 
 
It's clear that several items contained in the final package are suspect in terms of their ability to contribute to an economic kick-start. For example, educational grants serve their purpose in society, but they do not necessarily put people to work in the short term or generate a significant amount of economic activity. The billions of dollars provided for these and several other grant programs would undoubtedly be better served if invested in additional infrastructure, especially utility infrastructure. Nonetheless, the tens of billions of dollars in water and wastewater systems, as well as other environmental, energy, and communications infrastructure projects, will provide much-needed resources to address the severe financial challenges and job losses facing our industry right now. The first wave of projects are already out the door. Obviously, we also need to get the housing and banking industries back on track for any sort of lasting private sector recovery.
 
UTILITY CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
The following is a breakdown of the approximately $18 billion in federal investment toward programs that fund utility construction projects around the country.
 
Clean Water
Clean Water State Revolving Fund: $4 billion to help communities upgrade wastewater treatment systems. 
 
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund: $2 billion for drinking water infrastructure. 
 
Rural Water and Waste Disposal: $1.38 billion to support $3.8 billion in grants and loans to help communities fund drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. 
 
Water Resources
Corps of Engineers: $4.6 billion for environmental restoration, flood protection, hydropower and navigation infrastructure critical to the economy. 
 
Bureau of Reclamation: $1 billion to provide clean, reliable drinking water to rural areas and to ensure adequate water supply to western localities impacted by drought. 
 
Watershed Infrastructure: $340 million for the Natural Resources Conservation Service watershed improvement programs to design and build flood protection and water quality projects, repair aging dams and purchase and restore conservation easements in river flood zones.
 
International Boundary and Water Commission: $220 million to repair flood control systems along the international segment of the Rio Grande damaged by hurricane Katrina and other serious storms.
 
Environmental Cleanup
Superfund Hazardous Waste Cleanup: $600 million to clean up hazardous and toxic waste sites that threaten health and the environment. 
 
Brownfields: $100 million for competitive grants for evaluation and cleanup of former industrial and commercial sites (turning them from problem properties to productive community use). 
 
Underground Storage Tanks: $200 million for enforcement and cleanup of petroleum leaks from underground storage tanks at approximately 1,600 additional sites. 
 
Surface Transportation Infrastructure: $27.5 billion for highway, road and bridge construction projects.
 
Other Utility Infrastructure Investment
Wireless and Broadband Grants: $7.2 billion for broadband investment in rural and underserved areas.
 
Electricity Grid: $11 billion for research and development, pilot projects and federal matching funds for the Smart Grid Investment Program to modernize the electricity grid.
 
Opportunities for Small Business
Small Business Credit: $636 million for new direct lending and loan guarantee authorities to make loans more attractive to lenders and free up capital. 
 
Rural Business-Cooperative Service: $150 million for grants and loans to guarantee $3 billion in loans for rural businesses at a time of unprecedented demand due to the credit crunch.
 
Department of Defense Facilities
Facilities Renovations: $2.33 billion to address needed repairs to military facilities (we hear that much of this may go towards water and sewer facilities).
 
Public Lands and Parks
Construction on Public Lands and Parks: $3.1 billion for infrastructure projects on federal lands, including improvements to visitor facilities, road and trail restoration, preservation of buildings of cultural and historic importance, rehabilitation of abandoned mines and oil fields and environmental cleanup projects.
 
TAX PROVISIONS
 
On the tax side, the final bill includes the following tax provisions that should substantially assist small businesses:
 

• extension of the bonus depreciation for property placed into service in 2009
• extension of the small business expensing increase through 2009
• extension of the net operating loss carry back for small businesses
• one-year delay of the 3% federal withholding tax on government contractors