Skip to main content

USDoT goes 'back to basics' by rescinding Biden-era memos

Transport funding memos were part of 'radical social and environmental agenda'
By Adam Hill March 11, 2025 Read time: 1 min
USDoT is 'building critical infrastructure projects that move people and move commerce safely' © Brett Critchley | Dreamstime.com)

The US Department of Transportation has further signalled the Trump administration's desire to break with the past by rescinding transport funding memos issued during President Joe Biden's time in the White House.

USDoT now says that the two separate memorandums, both called 'Policy on Using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Resources to Build a Better America', "injected a social justice and environmental agenda into decisions for critical infrastructure projects" and were "in conflict with Congressional intent and the Administrative Procedure Act".

"These Biden-era memos displaced the long-standing authorities granted to states by law, added meritless and costly burdens related to greenhouse gas emissions and equity initiatives," USDoT's statement continues.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Transportation is getting back to basics — building critical infrastructure projects that move people and move commerce safely," says transportation secretary Sean P. Duffy. "The previous administration flouted Congress in an attempt to push a radical social and environmental agenda on the American people. This was an act of federal overreach. It stops now.”

The decision "affirms that these Biden-era policies have no basis in statute and have no role in DoT programmes going forward".  

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • IAM calls for greater focus on intelligence led drink drive enforcement
    August 8, 2014
    There should be greater use of intelligence-led policing to catch drink drivers who repeatedly and excessively flout the law, according to road safety charity Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM). The call from the IAM comes as new figures published by the Department for Transport show the number of fatal accidents involving drink drivers last year falling by five per cent, from 220 in 2011 to 210 in 2012. In the same period, the number of people killed in drink drive accidents decreased by four per cent,
  • ITS America signs MoU with World Bank
    March 27, 2012
    During its Board of Directors meeting last week, ITS America signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the World Bank to formalise their desire to cooperate and exchange ideas about how transportation technologies that enhance information capture, analysis, communications, and sharing can improve surface transportation safety, mobility and environmental sustainability.
  • ITS America signs MoU with World Bank
    March 27, 2012
    During its Board of Directors meeting last week, ITS America signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the World Bank to formalise their desire to cooperate and exchange ideas about how transportation technologies that enhance information capture, analysis, communications, and sharing can improve surface transportation safety, mobility and environmental sustainability.
  • Michigan DOT director joins committee to study the future of interstates
    August 30, 2016
    Sixty years after president Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act 1956 into law, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is to carry out a 30 month study of the future of the country’s interstate highway system. Michigan Department of Transportation director Kirk T. Steudle has been named as a member of the committee that will study the future of the US Interstate Highway System (IGS).