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U.S. Tackles Infrastructure Backlog by Dropping Climate Change Requirements
Kevin Rozario
June 11, 2025
St. Louis Airport will be one of the biggest beneficiaries in the latest round of USDOT grants.
© City of St. Louis Airport Authority
United States Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy stated, on Tuesday, that his department had cleared “another 529 infrastructure grants to get America building again” and that he would accelerate the distribution of “long-overdue funds” to address core infrastructure projects.
The latest grants, which total more than USD2.9 billion, bring the projects approved to more than a third of the 3,200 in his inbox. Of the latest series of 529 grants approved, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) total is around 1% at 33 grants, but their value is much greater at just over 5% or USD157 million.
The 33 location-based FAA grants break down as follows:
- Airport Improvement Program Supplemental: 23 projects worth USD124 million
- Airport Terminal Program: 10 projects worth USD33 million.
Within the FAA portfolio, the five biggest grants are for improvements to the following air gateways:
- USD20.0 million to John Wayne Airport, Orange County
- USD20.0 million to St. Louis Lambert International Airport
- USD19.3 million to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport
- USD17.2 million to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
- USD14.3 million to Kahului Airport, the main air gateway on the island of Maui, Hawaii.
U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) said in a press release that Duffy has now cleared the way for more than 1,000 projects across the United States, from rail and highways to airports and public transportation, green-lighting roughly USD10 billion since the start of the Trump presidency on January 20.
To release those funds, Duffy has removed climate-change and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) requirements, in line with Trump’s previous Executive Orders on the subjects. Some of those EOs have already been met with strong resistance from the Airport Minority Advisory Council (AMAC), which represents minority- and women-led businesses in the airport retail sector.
AMAC's Wimbush: “We are in this fight, we have a voice, and we will be heard.”
Fighting for Equity
At the end of last month, AMAC also issued a statement about an ongoing case in the courts. Eboni Wimbush, AMAC’s President & CEO, said: “On May 21, 2025, in a decisive victory for equity in public contracting, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky granted AMAC, and our coalition partners (DBE-Intervenors), the right to intervene in Mid-America Milling Company vs USDOT, ensuring that our voices and those of the businesses we represent, will be heard.”
On May 29, DBE-Intervenors filed a formal notice of intent to oppose a motion in the case proposing a consent order that would dismantle the DBE Program without consulting or notifying the DBE-Intervenors.
The program was authorized by Congress in 1983 to remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination on federally funded transportation contracts. “We will not stand by while others attempt to quietly unravel decades of progress,” said Wimbush. “We are in this fight, we have a voice, and we will be heard.”
Meanwhile, Duffy has doubled down on his actions and said he was refocusing USDOT on core infrastructure—“not enacting a radical political agenda”—and would “continue to rip out red tape roadblocks.”
Also targeted by USDOT have been what the department calls “the Green New Scam” and social justice requirements that he says Congress did not mandate. These include elements such as social cost of carbon accounting and “pointless” greenhouse gas emissions reporting. Examples of requirements that have been removed can be found here.
* A few days ago, Trump’s nominee to lead the FAA, Republic Airways CEO Bryan Bedford, was grilled by senators on safety issues ranging from air traffic control systems to aging airport infrastructure. Currently, the FAA is being run by Chris Rocheleau on an interim basis following the resignation of the FAA’s 19th Administrator, Mike Whitaker, on Trump’s inauguration day.