Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy greets members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee before the panel’s hearing on the White House fiscal 2026 budget request for the Transportation Department on July 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged patience Wednesday from Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who asked about a backlog of approved grants the department has yet to pay out to state and local governments.

Duffy, in his first appearance before the panel, said former President Joe Biden’s Transportation Department approved an unprecedented 3,200 grants between Election Day 2024 and President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Duffy told the panel his department was working to send out the remaining 1,300 grants, but that the task would take time.

He added that his hope was to complete the review by late summer or early fall.

“We have been left 3,200 grants — that is a historic number — from the last administration,” he said in response to a question from ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington. “I know you all want your grants, but I don’t think everyone recognizes the workload that was left to us.”

Duffy also promoted the inclusion in Republicans’ budget reconciliation law of $12.5 billion to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system, calling it a “down payment” on a $31.5 billion need. He called on Congress to fund the remaining $19 billion.

The air traffic control system has been targeted for reforms and technical upgrades for years. Renewed urgency on the issue came this year after a deadly crash near Washington Reagan National Airport in Northern Virginia during Duffy’s first full day on the job.

‘Leaving construction jobs on the table’

Larsen pressed Duffy on the delayed grants, and several members of both parties also asked about the status of grants to projects in their districts.

“I urge you to get on with the review of the remainder of these grants, because we’re leaving construction jobs on the table without these grants going out the door,” Larsen said. “Holding up these grants stalls badly needed job training, construction investments, and we need to get them going on that.”

Duffy said the department processed more grants in the first three months of the year than previous administrations had during the same period, but acknowledged that members of Congress and state transportation departments still wanted faster movement.

“I know that’s not enough for everybody,” he said. “Everyone wants their grants right now, and so we are working diligently to do that as quickly as possible.”

But some Democrats also complained about seven grants that had been canceled outright. Six of the seven were in Democratic states, California Democrat John Garamendi said. The seventh was a grant to the University of New Orleans, he said.

The projects appeared to be targeted because their titles included words related to diversity, equity and inclusion, Garamendi said.

Duffy said those grants departed from what the department’s priorities should be, such as decreasing the 40,000 traffic deaths per year.

“The racial stuff, as opposed to keeping people safe, that’s my drive,” Duffy said.

Air traffic control modernization

Duffy noted many members of the panel did not vote for the reconciliation law that extended 2017 tax cuts while slashing spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance programs. No Democrats voted for the law.

But he said he thought everyone on the committee would have supported the $12.5 billion for air traffic control.

Chairman Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, praised the provision.

“This funding will allow the administration to immediately get to work to replace critical telecommunications infrastructure and radar systems, invest in runway safety and airport surveillance projects and replace antiquated air traffic control facilities,” Graves said.

That initial payment would be insufficient to the total need of the system, Duffy said.

“We are going to need more money from the Congress than this $12.5 billion,” he said. “We will need more to do it. No offense to anybody, but the way Congress spends money, we’re talking $31.5 billion to do the full project. And my hope is that we’ll have an additional conversation about how we can do that. And I think time is of the essence.”

Electric vehicles

Democrats said they wanted to restore funding, provided in the bipartisan 2021 infrastructure law, for electric vehicle, or EV, chargers.

Republicans said that money could be better spent on other priorities, such as dedicated parking spaces for truckers, an issue raised by Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas. Crawford, a former chair of the panel’s Highways and Transit Subcommittee, applauded the department’s recent move to redirect $275 million for truck parking.

“Our nation was not and is still not at a point where rapid rollouts of charging infrastructure is a pressing issue,” Crawford said. “In contrast, our trucking industry is certainly not in a position where transitioning to electrification is a priority, but we do need parking.”

Duffy told the panel that the Biden administration’s rules for building EV charging were part of the reason why relatively few electric vehicle chargers had been built. He told Wisconsin Republican Tony Wied and New Hampshire Democrat Chris Pappas that the previous administration’s requirements regarding social justice and climate requirements in contracts delayed construction.

“There were so many rules about how the money could be spent, and it was polluted with ideas of the DEI and all the green work, which made it really challenging for states to build,” he said.

Duffy, a former House member from Wisconsin, said he would carry out laws passed by Congress, including funding for EV charging, even though he disagreed with it. But he also said he supported Trump’s attempt to revoke funding.

Pappas told Duffy his state was ready for the new guidelines.

“We’re ready to put shovels in the ground in New Hampshire,” Pappas said.

Workers moving equipment and road signs on a highway. (Getty Images)  

A Rhode Island federal judge seemed likely Wednesday to block the U.S. Department of Transportation’s move to yank billions in congressional funding for bridges, roads and airport projects if Democrat-led states do not partake in federal immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge John James McConnell Jr. during a hearing pressed acting U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom on how the Transportation Department could have power over funding that was approved by Congress, saying federal agencies “only have appropriations power given by Congress.”

“That’s how the Constitution works,” he said. “Where does the secretary get the power and authority to impose immigration conditions on transportation funding?”

The suit brought by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenges an April directive from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former House member from Wisconsin, that requires states to cooperate in federal immigration enforcement in order to receive federal grants already approved by Congress.

“Defendents seek to hold hostage tens of billions of dollars of critical transportation funding in order to force the plaintiff states to become mere arms of the federal government’s immigration enforcement policies,” Delbert Tran of the California Department of Justice, who argued on behalf of the states, said.

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Bloom said that Duffy’s letter simply directs the states to follow federal immigration law.

McConnell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2011, said that while the states could interpret it that way, the Trump administration has gone after so-called sanctuary cities and targeted them for not taking the same aggressive immigration enforcement as the administration.

The judge said Bloom’s argument expressed a “very different” interpretation of the directive than how the administration has described it publicly. He also noted President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have “railed on … the issues that arise from sanctuary cities.”

Trump this week directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to target Chicago, Los Angeles and New York — three major Democrat-led cities that have policies to not aid in immigration enforcement.

McConnell said he would make a decision whether to issue a preliminary injunction before Friday. The preliminary injunction would be tailored to the states that brought the suit and would not have a nationwide effect.

The states that brought the suit are California, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Undermines Congress

Tran said the Department of Transportation’s directive is not only arbitrary and capricious, but undermines congressional authority because Congress appropriated more than $100 billion for transportation projects to the states.

Cutting off funding would have disastrous consequences, the states have argued.

“More cars, planes, and trains will crash, and more people will die as a result, if Defendants cut off federal funding to Plaintiff States,” according to the brief from the states.

Transportation security and immigration

Bloom defended Duffy’s letter, saying it listed actions that would impede federal law enforcement and justified withholding of funds because “such actions compromise the safety and security of the transportation systems supported by DOT financial assistance.”

McConnell said that didn’t answer his question about the secretary’s authority to withhold congressionally appropriated funding.

“It seems to me that the secretary is saying that a failure to comply with immigration conditions is relevant to the safety and security of the transportation system,” Bloom said.

McConnell seemed skeptical of that argument.

“Under that rationale, does the secretary of the Department of Transportation have the authority to impose a condition on federal highway funds that prohibit a state that has legalized abortion from seeking a federal grant?” he asked. 

Bloom said that question was beyond her directive from the Department of Transportation to address in her arguments to the court.

“I understand your question,” she said. “All I think I can say is that here the secretary has, in his statement, set out a rationale for why this is relevant to DOT funding.”

Tran said that the “crux of this case is” that the Trump administration is trying “to enforce other laws that do not apply to these grants,” by requiring states to partake in immigration enforcement.

“It’s beyond their statutory authority,” he argued.