Reconnecting America Policy Director Sarah Kline is quoted in Streetsblog Capitol Hill post discussing recent changes in the federal transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program.

“By removing those selection criteria, they’ve basically turned the federal government into a bank,” said Sarah Kline, director of policy for Reconnecting America, “instead of an entity with national policy in mind.” . . .

“The federal government essentially has no control over what kind of projects get built,” Kline said. “As long as you come in with an application that is technically eligible and meets the credit-worthiness, it’s not clear to me that the federal government can say, ‘No, this is not the kind of project we want to fund; we’re looking for things that are innovative; this is not innovative.’”

Read the blog post: Under New Bill, America’s Transpo Loan Program Ignores National Goals