Senators, Duffy begin surface transportation reauthorization talks 

By Julie Sneider, Senior Editor 

The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) met April 1 with U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to begin the groundwork for what will become surface transportation reauthorization legislation that will succeed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIHJA), which will expire in 2026.  

Two themes ran consistently throughout the nearly two-hour hearing: Senators wanted to know the status of various infrastructure projects awaiting funding as a result of the IIJA; and the need for streamlining the project permitting and U.S. Department of Transportation’s approval processes, including for meeting requirements under the National Environmental Protection Act. 

In his opening statement, Duffy said the Jan. 29 fatal collision between a passenger jet and U.S. Army helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., refocused the USDOT’s main mission on safety. The mid-air collision, which occurred nine days into the new Trump administration, caused the deaths of 67 people. 

Although the EPW hearing’s purpose was to discuss surface transportation, Duffy explained the crash had prompted greater focus on the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations and the need to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system. 

“We will do this by embracing the most advanced 21st century technology that makes our system safer, cheaper and easier for all Americans,” Duffy said. “We will bring these same themes to our [surface] transportation programs.” 

“We can still protect the environment, but let’s cut the red tape so we can move these infrastructure projects faster.” — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy USDOT

Reauthorization should follow 3 principles, chair says 

In her opening statement, EPW Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) noted that while she voted for the IIJA, she has three “principles” that she wants to see in the reauthorization: improving surface transportation system’s safety and reliability; increasing the efficiency of federal programs; and giving states more flexibility under the bill to address their specific transportation needs. 

In his opening statement, Ranking Member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) expressed frustration with the USDOT’s slow pace at getting IIJA money out the door for approved infrastructure projects. He acknowledged the reasons for the delays include extensive permitting requirements and federal bureaucracy, and added that he said he and many of his committee colleagues “rode the Biden administration” over those funding delays. 

“We take our oversight responsibility seriously no matter who’s in the White House,” the senator said. But with that, he wanted to know whether any of the most “recent spate of delays” in USDOT funding of projects that had been announced during the Biden administration were due to the Trump administration’s order to strip federal funding of projects that promote diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) or climate change policies. 

Duffy: No projects have been frozen 

Throughout the hearing and in response to Whitehouse’s and other senators’ questions and comments, Duffy reiterated that there had been no pause or freeze in federal funding of IIJA-related infrastructure projects. He said the Trump administration’s USDOT inherited from the previous administration over 3,200 awarded projects that don’t have signed grant agreements. Without signed grant agreements, the federal funding of those projects can’t be disbursed. 

It would be impossible for USDOT to complete grant agreements in two months for 3,200 projects, some of which date back more than three years, Duffy said. 

Whitehouse then asked how many of those 3,200 projects’ funding agreements “are stuck because of the demand from the White House to have words they don’t like — like equity and climate — scrubbed out to meet the new anti-heretical requirements of these orders and how much of it is actually a substantive problem with the infrastructure [projects] themselves?” 

Duffy said the USDOT is reviewing funding notices to see if there are federal climate or social justice policy requirements that increase the cost of proposed infrastructure projects. The Biden administration — not Congress — added green and social justice requirements to some infrastructure funding programs, Duffy claimed. He tried to assure the committee that his department would work through the backlog of grant agreements as quickly as possible. 

The dustup over climate and social justice terms aside, the hearing for the most part struck a bipartisan tone, especially on the need to streamline bureaucracy and reform the permitting process. 

“We can still protect the environment, but let’s cut the red tape so we can move these infrastructure projects faster,” Duffy said.