The federal law that carries America's surface transportation programs — and much of the machinery P3s finance through — was set to expire on September 30. Congress bought time: the stopgap signed in early September extends federal funding, and the surface programs with it, to December 11, 2026.
For P3 sponsors, builders, and investors, the extension mostly sets a clock. The next multi-year bill will fix the terms of federal infrastructure finance well into the 2030s, and the decisive drafting happens between now and the lame-duck session. Anyone who wants a say has weeks to act.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved its five-year reauthorization, the BUILD America 250 Act (H.R. 8870), in May by a 62-2 bipartisan vote. It authorizes roughly $580 billion for FY 2027–2031. The structure matters more than the headline number: about $474 billion is guaranteed from the Highway Trust Fund, while the remaining ~$106 billion is authorized subject to future appropriations, and unlike the 2021 infrastructure law the bill carries no advance appropriations. The bill was teed up for House floor action over the summer. The Senate has moved more slowly, and in August leadership chose an extension over forcing a September conference.
The math underneath the bill got harder in the meantime. The Congressional Budget Office reported in July that even the House bill would widen the Highway Trust Fund deficit, and Congress has papered over the Fund's structural gap with general-fund transfers for more than a decade. Patches, including a federal EV registration fee, remain unresolved.
Less guaranteed grant money and a strained trust fund point the same way: more of the gap between what needs building and what Washington will fund gets closed with financing tools and private capital. That puts the details of this bill squarely on the P3 industry's desk. Three provisions matter most.
Transportation private activity bonds, the tax-exempt backbone of most large U.S. P3 financings, are capped at $30 billion nationally, and the capacity is gone. By the Build America Bureau's own accounting, the full $30 billion is committed: $23.9 billion allocated and issued, $6.1 billion allocated and awaiting issuance, and zero available for new allocations. A project without an allocation cannot get one unless Congress raises the cap. AASHTO has formally asked Congress to raise or eliminate the cap in this bill, and in August Senators Duckworth and McCormick introduced the TURBO Act, which would lift it to $45 billion and broaden eligibility. Until something passes, PAB access is not a financing question; it is a legislative one.
The House bill continues TIFIA credit subsidies near current levels ($1.25 billion over five years from the Trust Fund) and would let up to 15 percent of TIFIA funding be reserved for airport projects — a real opening for airport P3s and their investors.
Tolling flexibility, asset recycling, permitting provisions, Buy America application, and the fate of advance appropriations for the big discretionary grant programs are all still in play; more than a hundred industry organizations are pressing Congress on the grant items alone. Extensions and lame-duck packages are where provisions like these get slipped in or dropped.
I read this bill from the government's side of the table. As executive director of the Puerto Rico Ports Authority — owner of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, the first major U.S. airport privatized under the FAA's pilot program, and of the San Juan cruise terminals — I worked in oversight of the airport concession and led the cruise-terminal P3 from conception through selection of the concessionaire. As advisor to Puerto Rico's P3 Authority, I later handled that concession's regulatory closing and federal approvals, along with its formal evaluation report. And I sat on the partnership committee and board of directors that carried the islandwide ferry system from conception to signature to implementation, then led its multi-year compliance reporting. Every one of those deals taught the same lesson: the federal financing terms decide which projects pencil.
For projects financing in the next 18–24 months, three consequences follow. First, a capital stack that assumes new PAB capacity now depends on legislation, so treat the cap raise as part of the deal timeline. Second, model anything that leans on general-fund discretionary grants conservatively, because "authorized subject to appropriations" still has to survive an annual appropriations fight. Third, committee staff are writing now; asks that arrive after the lame duck begins arrive late.
The next surface bill will govern federal infrastructure finance for at least five years. The realistic window to influence it is the next ten weeks.
Anthony O. Maceira is the Managing Member of Maceira Zayas, a law and government affairs firm with offices in Washington, D.C. and San Juan. He advises sponsors, contractors, and investors on public-private partnerships and the federal programs that finance them. This analysis is for general information and is not legal advice.
