Sec. 204. Formation of regional economic accelerator planning groups
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The Bank, through its branch offices, shall facilitate the organization of at least 7 Regional Economic Accelerator Planning Groups, to be defined by common economic, demographic, and infrastructure linkages. The Regional Economic Accelerator Planning Groups may— organize themselves by, and be composed of, State and local public sector officials, including through multijurisdictional or multistate agreements among agencies; identify economic mega-regions, defined as hub cities, related towns and suburbs, manufacturing production corridors, and rural areas woven together into the communities where people of the United States live, work, and provide goods or services for movement within the region, and to other regions; identify infrastructure needs and priorities for mega-regions, with input from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and other trade, business, and industrial associations; develop regional economic accelerator plans, and a pipeline of infrastructure projects, and their strategic placement, needed to improve supply chains, land use, and productivity within each mega-region, while seeking to include all communities; define how such projects will create energy savings, environment improvements, jobs and wage improvements, regional economic growth, and growth in regional tax income; identify where multijurisdictional agreements should be enacted or strengthened to improve the development of infrastructure projects that cross jurisdictional lines (examples are transportation improvements along the northeast corridor, flood mitigation in midwestern States along the Missouri River, or development of a national high-speed rail grid); identify where Federal, State, or local laws and regulations should be streamlined to reduce infrastructure project approval times, while maintaining environmental and safety objectives, and work towards streamlining those laws and regulations; seek public input on the broad outlines of each regional infrastructure development plan; provide such plans to the Bank, to inform the Bank on its selection of infrastructure projects for financing; and assist entities formulating and submitting projects for consideration of Bank financing on the definition, scope, selection criteria, and others factors under section 205 that will be considered in the approval process.