In September, 2011, President Obama stood before a joint session of Congress to make the case for his new American Jobs Act proposals to strengthen the economy, which included $10 billion in one-time seed money for a national infrastructure bank. The president borrowed his proposal from the bipartisan BUILD Act, sponsored by Senators John Kerry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Mark Warner, and modeled largely after the politically popular TIFIA loan program.

It was the first time a sitting president had sent an infrastructure bank bill to Congress. With bipartisan support from two Republican Senators and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, it was a high-water mark of sorts for the infrastructure bank.