USDOT initiated another arbitrary freeze sowing chaos for chaos’s sake: Congress should take note

The Trump administration’s delay of the nation’s largest public transit and intercity passenger rail project underscores what Congress should already know: the Trump administration is a bad-faith partner and a clear threat to the legislative process.

Earlier this week,  Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought via X (formerly known as Twitter) and the United States Department of Transportation, announced the Trump administration has frozen approximately $18 billion in USDOT funding for the nation’s largest transit and passenger rail projects: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s Second Avenue Subway and the Hudson Tunnel Project (a component of the Gateway Program), justifying the hold “to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” 

No matter the justifications, this is just another example of what the administration has been doing since taking office: acting out of retribution, illegally rescinding funds, and canceling congressionally authorized spending. This is nothing new, merely the latest and largest in a series of politicized, confidence-destroying attacks on transportation and bipartisan governance that should make any member of Congress think twice before entrusting authority to this administration in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill.  

In the words of Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Shelley Moore Capito, we need to “avoid top-down mandates from Washington, D.C.” House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves would agree, in his own words, “we need to continue to empower states and limit federal intrusion,” but will not check an administration intent on governing by vendetta. Democrats are unable to stop the creep of administrative overreach by doing anything other than shutting down the government, and the country’s transportation infrastructure continues to both crumble and kill people while Congress pursues a business-as-usual approach to surface transportation reauthorization. 

The transportation system is broken, but negotiations over the surface transportation reauthorization bill don’t align with that reality—the administration will not faithfully implement any bill that Congress passes in a bipartisan fashion. Any agreement on reauthorization will not matter because it will be rendered ineffective the moment it’s signed by the President, who will do everything in his administration’s power to undermine and delay whatever he doesn’t agree with. This is the lesson of the Second Avenue Subway and the Hudson Tunnel Project delay, and the cancellation and impoundment of dozens of other projects last month. If Congress doesn’t learn that lesson now, taxpayers will be left with a transportation system that continues to fail to meet Americans’ needs.

What got us here? Vengeance as governing

Transportation for America has been tracking the administration’s actions for months. Time and again, they have proven that, from the smallest bike lane to the most significant passenger rail infrastructure project in America, USDOT cannot be trusted to execute the programs authorized by Congress as they were intended to be carried out. 

This administration has proven they are not a faithful steward of federal funds by exercising a normal or near-normal scope of administrative interpretation—they are malignant actors with an agenda that far exceeds traditional administrative authority and the outlined programs and priorities in law.

As we have previously cautioned members of Congress, they would be foolish to move forward with a new bipartisan infrastructure deal if the administration can pick and choose, down to the smallest project, what they deem acceptable. The faith is broken—the terms of the agreement no longer exist. Under these conditions, it would be incredibly short-sighted to vote for any long-term reauthorization and believe that their wishes would be faithfully implemented.