The Obama administration has announced the launch of a $10-billion loan fund that, initially, draws on private capital to help finance water, electric-power and other infrastructure projects in rural areas.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters in a conference call that the new U.S. Rural Infrastructure Opportunity Fund, which the White House Rural Council announced on July 24, “means that we can begin to address aggressively the infrastructure deficit that exists in the United States in the rural communities today.”