Read the full research note here. This research note by the Center for Public Enterprise and the State Support Center focuses on how RFIs can serve as a procurement strategy for public agencies with project finance, development, and/or ownership authorities. RFIs can be a valuable tool for state and municipal instrumentalities to (1) gather information […]

Every January, the project finance law team at Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) brings together bankers and infrastructure investment experts to discuss trends across the American energy and infrastructure finance landscape. Their annual Cost of Capital outlook is a deep well of information that allows our team to support our state and local government clients. Last year, we summarized the takeaways we believed were worth policymakers’ attention. This year, we’ll do the same—but we’ll be drawing from more sources.

Policymakers concerned about the deployment of clean energy and compute-focused infrastructure over the long term need a framework for managing the uncertainty in the AI sector's investment landscape—and for understanding the local and regional impacts of a market correction that strands data centers and their energy projects.

Read the full report here. Read our abridged list of recommendations here. Executive Summary The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now made law, looks better for the Loan Programs Office than what the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee had initially proposed. That first draft both rescinded funding for and repealed the authorities of all […]

Read the full report here. Executive summary Proponents of enhanced geothermal energy are correct that this nascent technology has incredible potential to decarbonize the U.S. energy system. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) share drilling technologies with the shale fracking industry, making them a compelling option for policymakers looking to leverage existing American supply chains to drive […]

Access the report here. Despite growing policymaker and industry interest in nuclear power, the U.S. has failed to deploy more than one new nuclear power project in the past three decades. Why? The failure to deploy this “clean firm” source of power is the result of financing challenges, which are themselves the result of the […]

Nuclear developers have practical reasons to be concerned that the investment tax credit, large as it is, cannot easily provide them with upfront construction-period support.

In late 2025, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) Institute released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking ambitious economic policymaking strategies that advance affordable and abundant decarbonization and infrastructure resilience. CPE submitted its response in December 2025. We believe this submission adequately summarizes much of the public-facing work the CPE Energy Team has done over the past three years.

CPE’s Director of Energy Yakov Feygin and Senior Associate for Capital Markets Advait Arun prepared a research memo for the SEEC Institute outlining how states can advance decarbonization and green industrial policy amid federal uncertainty. This memo draws on CPE’s work with state agencies and municipalities nationwide, and demonstrates how tools like green banks, revolving […]

In our work supporting state financing instrumentalities, state energy offices, and local governments in preparing clean energy deployment plans, we have often found ourselves describing the kinds of capabilities and functionalities that we believe public financial instrumentalities must be able to exercise in order to meet their decarbonization and community development goals. While we have […]

Watch the webinar here.Read the presentation here. On August 1, 2025, the Center for Public Enterprise, RMI, Milken Institute Community Infrastructure Center, and S2 Strategies hosted a webinar called “Maintaining Momentum: How States and Private Finance Can Continue to Lead on Clean Energy.” The leadership of subnational governments, green banks, and private financing are vital […]

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, recently signed into law, made an interesting tweak to the tax structure of energy projects: It reinstated developers’ ability to deduct the total cost of their capital expenditures from their taxable income in the year they made those expenditures.  This provision, known as “full expensing” or “100 percent bonus […]

It’s not just about cost—the bill text imposes new and perhaps insurmountable uncertainties on project developers and investors.