The Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA)
program accelerates investment in our nation's water
infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost supplemental
loans for regionally and nationally significant projects.

FY 2023 WIFIA Selection Round Overview

In Fiscal Year 2023 (Round 7), the WIFIA project selection built on the improvements the
program saw in implementing rolling project selection in Round 6. Rolling project selection
allows for a more tailored and efficient selection process. Each LOI is evaluated independently
and does not need to wait for the entire cohort to be selected. A standard letter of interest
review took under 3 weeks in this round. This allowed borrowers faster responses and greater
certainty in their funding plans.

The WIFIA program is also able to offer greater borrower support through the rolling process. In
this round, WIFIA was able to offer ongoing technical assistance to three communities, two of
which were small communities. Due to this assistance, no borrowers were turned away from
WIFIA assistance in this funding round.

This funding round showed the scope of the WIFIA program in a variety of areas including
borrower size, geography, and experience.

•	A third of the borrowers selected in this round qualified as small communities, with
requested loans totalling nearly $300 million. These borrowers have smaller
communities and often smaller loan sizes and are still finding the WIFIA process user
friendly and economically beneficial.

•	The WIFIA program has always been a national program but has seen the waterfall
effect of successful loans in certain areas, resulting in more LOIs. This year, with the
closing of a second loan in Pflugerville, TX, the WIFIA program saw 5 LOIs from the state
of Texas, more than any other year. Many of these projects were specifically targeted
to support local economic and population growth,

•	In early WIFIA rounds, program growth was driven by extremely low interest rates. As
the interest rate environment has changed, so has the WIFIA program. Today WIFIA has
proven that it has added value in a variety of other areas, including project and finance
flexibility, responsiveness to borrower needs, and favorable loan terms. This is
demonstrated by borrowers returning to WIFIA for multiple loans over time. In this
round, four existing borrowers returned to request additional funding from the
program.

For more information on selected WIFIA projects, visit the pending loans table on the WIFIA

website.

WIFIA

PROGRAM

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