U.S. DOT Issues Guidance for Discretionary Grant Project Reviews

What happened: U.S. Department of Transportation officials must review pending grant awards for specific priorities conflicting with those of the Trump administration, according to a directive from Secretary Sean Duffy issued March 11. It applies to discretionary grants awarded during the Biden administration, but for which no grant agreement was signed before Jan. 20. Administrators are charged with renegotiating, or completely canceling, any project that incorporates one or more of the following elements:

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies;
• climate change activities;
• Environmental Justice (EJ);
• gender-specific priorities;
• bicycle infrastructure (i.e., recreational trails and shared-use paths, etc.); and
• Electric Vehicles (EV) and EV charging infrastructure.

Why it matters: This guidance provides some clarity as to the status of discretionary grants affected by President Donald Trump’s ‘Day One’ executive orders targeting all DEI, EJ and EV-related government spending.

What’s next: While a timeline for reviews was not part of the guidance, ARTBA expects many of the projects up for evaluation will eventually be cleared to continue moving forward in the grant agreement process.