DOT reviews 3,200 awarded grants; senators press for faster obligation, clarity on removed requirements

The Department of Transportation is reviewing roughly 3,200 announced grant awards that do not yet have signed grant agreements, Secretary Sean Duffy told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and said the department intends to remove some previously required language on climate and diversity initiatives from grant agreements in order to speed execution.

Why it matters: Senators from both parties praised recent infrastructure investment but said the current pace of converting announced awards into executed grant agreements and released funds must accelerate so state and local governments can begin work and meet contractual timelines.

What DOT said

Duffy told senators the department inherited "an unprecedented backlog of 3,200 awarded projects without signed grant agreements," some dating to 2022. He said DOT had approved "over 400 grants totaling $4,900,000,000" in his first 100 days in office and described plans to consolidate multiple grants-tracking systems into one dashboard to improve transparency.

Duffy also said the department will drop certain grant requirements that he described as costly and time-consuming, including some climate- and equity-related language used by prior administrations in Notices of Funding Opportunity. "What we've done is asked to repurpose some of the requirements inside of those grant agreements," he said, adding his aim was to "save you money and allow you to move quicker on your projects."

Concerns from senators

Sen. Patty Murray (D) sharply criticized the pace and framing of DOT's changes. "You are causing a traffic jam from freezing funding for projects to creating new hurdles by reevaluating grants that had already been approved," she said.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D) urged DOT to provide a clear throughput metric and timetable for completing the review. Senators raised the risk that projects could face higher costs or lose match funding if execution is delayed.

DOT responses and next steps

Duffy said grants and obligations already executed are not being stopped and that his team is prioritizing moving funds to projects once agreements are in place. He acknowledged that the current pace is not fast enough and said he was pushing for technological and staffing changes to move the backlog more quickly. He offered to provide members with a month-by-month chart of grant-agreement execution to show progress.

Quotes

- "We've inherited an unprecedented backlog of 3,200 awarded projects without signed grant agreements," Secretary Sean Duffy.

- "You are causing a traffic jam from freezing funding for projects to creating new hurdles by reevaluating grants that had already been approved," Sen. Patty Murray.

Clarifying details

- Duffy said the DOT had approved over 400 grants totaling about $4.9 billion in his first 100 days in office but that about 3,200 announced awards still lacked executed grant agreements.

- Duffy described 10 to 14 separate grants-tracking systems at DOT and proposed a single public dashboard to increase transparency and speed.

Ending

Senators requested written detail and timelines from DOT on how quickly the department will convert announced awards into signed grant agreements and obligate funds, and asked DOT to provide materials for the hearing record within 30 days.