Infrastructure bank to get a House hearing

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will meet next week to consider President Obama's proposal to create a national infrastructure bank.

The committee, which is chaired by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), will take up the president's proposal to provide $10 billion to set up a fund to be used exclusively for transportation projects. Supporters say the proposed infrastructure bank could be used to leverage private-sector investment in transportation projects far beyond its value.

But Mica has said that he would prefer if states created their own infrastructure banks instead of starting a new federal fund.

“While I support innovative financing to meet our nation’s infrastructure needs, the multibillion-dollar, Washington bureaucracy-based infrastructure bank President Obama is advocating raises many concerns," he reiterated in a statement Thursday.

"This hearing will focus on questions relating to the estimated $270 million yearlong process of creating another federally backed agency designed to pick project winners and losers," Mica continued. "A more positive approach would be to build on the 33 existing state infrastructure banks which lack financial backing but are in place, can get projects selected and moving and put people to work on an expedited basis."

The federal infrastructure bank proposal has been been pushed in the Senate by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

The proposal is joined by $50 billion in direct spending on transportation that is included in Obama's jobs proposal.  

The Transportation Committee's hearing on the infrastructure bank proposal will take place Oct. 12.

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