T4America Blog

Confused about the chaos? Make Congress and the administration clarify the transportation funding freeze

The federal government owes communities upwards of $125.6 billion dollars in federal contract obligations from the infrastructure law but President Trump is threatening to renege on the government’s legally binding commitments. Here’s how much they owe for transportation.

UPDATE 1/29/25 1:15 p.m. ET – The OMB guidance is being rescinded but calls and emails with questions should absolutely continue. See update in red below.

The promised “Golden Age” of travel is already in need of some roadside assistance. 

Amidst a wave of day-one actions by the new administration, President Trump signed the Unleashing American Energy executive order on January 20, 2025, targeting the previous administration’s top priorities. While the rhetoric was focused on stopping spending on diversity and inclusion, and climate and electric vehicles programs, the language was unclear and indiscriminately paused all spending for all programs under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act. This set the administration up to violate binding, legal contracts paying for everything from train tracks to traffic lights. 

Nearly everyone was shocked and confused, including groups like AASHTO which represents state departments of transportation.

The next day, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released guidance (M-25-11) attempting to walk back the scope of the previous day’s order. While still leaving things muddied, the administration was able to articulate its intended action to officials: there would be a halt on new obligations for a group of electric vehicle and community-focused programs, but legally required disbursements to obligated projects would continue.

On Monday of this week, in apparent disregard of the events of the previous week, the OMB issued a new memo (M-25-13) issuing an undefined “temporary pause”  on “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” expanding the scope of the Unleashing American Energy executive order from the previous administration’s signature programs to nearly every single federally funded project and program in the country. A slew of new documents circulated by the admin has done little to illuminate the administration’s intentions, with documents calling for individual agency staff to figure out if individual programs, including those that are defunct, happen to conflict with the new administration’s priorities. 

While a federal judge put a temporary pause on this funding freeze before it was to go into effect late Tuesday, it is not clear if the Trump administration will pause. Therefore, with all federal funding frozen, everything from federally subsidized lunches to efforts that fight avian flu is in limbo. Admittedly, transportation projects are nowhere near as urgent, but that is our field and where we will focus. 

UPDATE 1/29/25 1:15 p.m. ET

The New York Times is reporting that the OMB guidance to freeze all federal spending has been rescinded. “In a memo dated Wednesday and distributed to federal agencies, Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, states that OMB memorandum M-25-13 ‘is rescinded.’” This marks the second time in a week that guidance affecting vast swaths of transportation spending has been issued and then rescinded or clarified. They backed off last week but then went broader and bigger with the now-rescinded OMB guidance. But the story does not end here. The original Executive Order required that all spending be reviewed to see if it supports issues the Trump administration opposes, like climate change, DEI and a transition from fossil fuels. Will your project or priority be rejected on that basis, and who is making that decision and by when? You should absolutely continue to call and email your Senators and Representatives, your USDOT contacts and others in the administration as well as the media to clarify where your projects stand.

[End update]

Federal transportation funding is always flowing to all levels of government. Everything on a spectrum from small grant programs (like Safe Streets and Roads for All grants), to the Federal Highway Administration’s largest formula program to states (the National Highway Performance Program) are affected without sufficient clarification about the impacts on active projects.

Assume this pause will directly affect projects in your community. To get answers on what this might mean for your project and how long this pause will last, we strongly encourage you to let people know about the impact a pause or cancellation of your project will have.

• Reach out to your contact at USDOT (or elsewhere in the administration) and ask them to clarify if your project is stopped and for how long. Let them know the impact of even a pause. Knowing that there is an upcoming deadline before furloughs or events that have to be canceled might help them to make decisions more quickly.
• Contact your federal representatives in the House and the Senate to let them know about your project and get their help to speed a determination about your project and get the funds flowing again. Ask them to clarify the status of your project and explain why it is or is not moving forward. If your member of Congress attended an event or put out a press release announcing your grant, suggest they take a similar action to explain the status of the project under this order.
• Make sure your state, county, and local elected officials know about your project and the impact this order will have. They may be able to help you get answers. (Plus, they may be trying to get a handle on everything within their jurisdiction that is impacted and identify ways to help.) Here’s an online tool that may help you find your local and state-level officials.
• Call reporters to let them know about your project so that they can get a sense of the impact to your regions. Ask them the same questions you are asking USDOT and your elected leaders—does this order affect our project and why? See if they can write about this and help you get information about what’s happening.

This order could have immense implications for states’ economies and local-level priorities. In 2022, federal funding made up over a third of states’ revenues. On the other hand, it is clear that this action was not thought out. The last 7 days have been chaotic, and we can be sure that the next 7 days will be too.

Don’t make any assumptions about where things are heading. Rather than issuing declarations and statements, involve those who made these decisions and those who have oversight powers over the administration in these questions and challenges. They need to own this mess and figure it out.

Fill their phone lines and inboxes up with so many “do you all know what this means?” questions that they’ll think twice about doing this kind of thing again. 

Click the image below to view a spreadsheet of all IIJA funding currently at risk.