Where's the money: Tracking Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding
The Trump administration is putting certain funds under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on pause, creating uncertainty for thousands of critical infrastructure projects across the country.
The Trump administration is putting certain funds under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on pause, creating uncertainty for thousands of critical infrastructure projects across the country.
The Trump administration is putting certain funds under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on pause, creating uncertainty for thousands of critical infrastructure projects across the country.
The country's aging infrastructure is becoming an increasingly urgent and costly problem. According to research from the , 1 in every 3 bridges in the U.S. needs repair or replacement.
To address that, Congress passed the in 2021, adding $550 billion in new spending to fix the nation's infrastructure.
In the wake of the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, funding under the law is back under the spotlight.
Last year, Congress announced it would cover the entire cost of rebuilding the Key Bridge using emergency relief funding. The project's $2 billion projected cost will include federal money alongside payouts from insurance and a pending lawsuit.
"We have all the contracts in place, and we did that in a pretty incredible time frame," Maryland Transportation Administration Executive Director Bruce Gartner said. "Having that assurance that we can move forward with it and rebuild and get the traffic flowing in the Baltimore region again, as quickly as we can, is very beneficial."
However, there is a growing urgency to address other infrastructure projects across the U.S.
Money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Joe Biden as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, became the largest federal investment in public transportation in history. To date, funding under the law has helped more than 70,000 projects across the country.
However, funding under IIJA is in question. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an clawing back certain funds, pending a U.S. Transportation Department review. The order leaves billions in limbo not already committed to projects by law and is forcing some states reliant on federal funds to reevaluate their applications.
"With the Biden administration, a lot of the criteria were about environmental issues and social justice issues. The Trump administration is rewriting those," Eno Transportation Center senior fellow Jeff Davis said. "Anything that was announced but not yet legally obligated, the [Trump] administration is free to take back without any kind of legal hassle. And those are the projects that are in danger."
There is more concern that inflation will rack up an even more expensive bill as building materials and labor costs continue to grow. Several states and businesses worry that delayed funding could hurt supply chains and jobs and further isolate rural communities.
"The new administration is rethinking some of those projects and the different grants that we've won. Those are all needed projects," Maryland Transportation Secretary Pail Wiedefeld said. "What I'm concerned about, and I think it's much larger than just transportation, is just uncertainty. Uncertainty isn't good for any financial model."
Some businesses are also suing the administration and appealing to local lawmakers to unfreeze the funds.
"They're either taking action in the courts or taking action through the legislature," Kristina Moore, a partner at law firm, said. "What [lawmakers'] constituents say matters, if they have a small business or a large business in their community, that's a job creator."
The White House and the U.S. Transportation Department did not respond to inquiries about how soon IIJA funds could be unfrozen.