Kutak Rock attorney Steve Sorett has co-authored, along with members of the Privatization, Outsourcing, and Financing Transactions Committee from the American Bar Association (ABA), a white paper titled "The Crisis in the Federal Government’s Infrastructure: Additional Approaches to the Current Federal Budgetary Scoring Regime." The white paper appears on the ABA’s website.

The white paper was sent to the White House in time to dovetail with the Administration’s new infrastructure initiative. If adopted, it will allow increased use of private sector third party financing to move federal capital and infrastructure projects forward on an accelerated pace while retaining the transparency that the Congress and Administration need to assure the projects are well conceived and monitored. Importantly, the recommendations contained in the white paper can be done by the White House without the need for legislation.

This white paper builds up a previous white paper published in 2008, with input from the public and private sectors. In that 2008 white paper, the Committee reviewed the federal budgetary scorekeeping rules, provided the public and private sectors’ view of these rules, and discussed potential legislative and regulatory alternatives that may enhance the Federal Government’s ability to efficiently and cost-effectively fund important infrastructure and other Capital-intensive projects. In this 2018 update, the Committee identifies two additional, alternative scoring approaches that may more accurately reflect the government’s obligations in connection with long term capital and real property projects, including those undertaken through Public-Private Partnerships (P3s).

Sorett focuses his practice on all phases of government contracting with an emphasis on outsourcing, privatization, project finance transactions, grants and cooperative agreements. He has more than 40 years of acquisition experience in all phases of government contracting.

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