United States Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, said that the Department of Transport “can do more with less”, as it established its priorities for a $ 1.5 million budget increase for a couple of congressional audiences on May 14 and 15. He also provided a more detailed view of Dot review on dowry not obligatory subjection awards. But the legislators questioned whether the decision to review the already awarded subsidies was slowing down the process with an added red ribbon instead of accelerating the project funding by removing priorities from Biden’s time such as environmental impact or social justice.
The budget application of 2026 by President Donald Trump includes a department budget of 5.8% to $ 26.7 billion, increasing initiatives that include the hiring of more air traffic controllers, the improvement of aviation safety equipment, developing ports and shipyards and the construction of roads and railway projects.
“Our budget carefully focuses on taxpayers’ resources in critical articles for our most fundamental security mission and investing in transport infrastructure,” said Duffy in prepared comments.
However, legislators said that the budgetary documents they received propose $ 3 billion to dowry specific programs. The proposal would increase dowry budget by $ 1.5 billion, leaving cuts that have not yet been exposed.
“There is still much about this application that is still unknown, as we look forward to the full budget of 2026.” Said representative Steve Womack (R-ARK), chairman of the Chamber Committee on transport, housing and urban development subcommittee.
Grant reviews
Several legislators interrogated Duffy about the dowry review of a decline of 3,200 grants, which he said they were awarded until 2022, but it had not been completed. The department announced this week that so far it has been signed to 405 of the subsidies, worth almost $ 5 billion.
“No one is more frustrated by the inefficiencies of this process than I,” Duffy said during one of the budgetary audiences.
Part of the question is that Dot uses up to 14 systems to track subsidies throughout the department, according to Duffy. He acknowledged that the “is not fast enough” process and could take several years to complete -at the current pace. The agency works to consolidate these systems in a dashboard for ease and transparency, as well as looking for AI and other tools that can help accelerate reviews, he added, but Duffy could not say how the reviews can be completed.
By virtue of the Biden administration, the number of approved Dot subsidies went from 330 by 2021 to more than 1,500 last year, according to Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (DN.Y.), a member of the Senate Sub -Committee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, said that he was worried that Dot “has been buried in red tape” when reviewing thousands of previously awarded subsidies again.
“There is no doubt that the effort during the months to re -review the subsidies is to slow the transport projects in all states,” he said. “The department also struggles because it has lost thousands of employees through the defunct program. It simply does not make sense to create more unnecessary duplicate work on grants when you have fewer people to review them again.”
The revisions include eliminating the requirements around diversity, heritage and inclusion, social justice and the environment that was added during the Biden administration, but not forced by Congress when they appropriated funding for grant programs, told Duffy, telling legislators that the requirements make projects more expensive and eliminating them to obtain financing for more projects.
Dot is not simply to cancel the projects because they met the requirements around DEI or other Biden policies that the Trump administration has not continued, he stated. However, when derived from concession agreements, the requirements are out.
Gillibrand asked Duffy if he agrees to pay grants that had been awarded to the main traffic projects, including the Westside Metro Metro Metro (D) Railway project (D) on line three, the extension of the Chicago Transit Authority Red Line, the Southwest Light Rail project in Minneapolis, extension of Phase 2 Avenue’s 2nd Subway project in New York. Hudson Tunnel between New York and New Jersey and Linnwood Link Extension in Washington State.
Duffy said he would not cancel the subsidy agreements, but as he answered the questions of another legislator, he said that there have been some grant agreements that “will not honor.” He described as an example some college research aids canceled.
“I am not to reduce projects,” said Duffy. “We want to build.”
