Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: DOT Should Better Communicate Funding Status and Assess Risks

What GAO Found

Enacted in 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) authorized and appropriated over $551 billion to the Department of Transportation (DOT) to provide grants to states, local governments, and other entities for transportation investments. As of April 2025, DOT has obligated 59 percent of its available IIJA funding and outlaid over half of that funding to recipients and awardees.

Obligated and Estimated Unobligated DOT IIJA Grant Funding, as of April 2025

Notes: Where applicable, funding totals are rounded to the nearest billion or million. Some grant funding authorized or appropriated for the Office of the Secretary of Transportation is obligated and outlaid by other operating administrations in USAspending.gov and is accounted for in the data for those operating administrations in this figure. GAO estimated unobligated funds by subtracting obligated funding from the total funding made available for fiscal years 2022 through 2025. Unobligated funding is available for obligation as of April 2025.

While DOT has publicly reported some IIJA funding information, it has not provided complete information to Congress on the amounts of obligations and outlays for formula and discretionary grant programs in aggregate. Doing so could provide Congress with information on how these two funding types affect obligation and outlay rates. This would be valuable as Congress considers the mix of programs to fund in upcoming surface transportation legislation.

Based on GAO's survey, discretionary grant awardees commonly experienced challenges with inflation cost increases; defining project budget and schedule; National Environmental Policy Act reviews; and Build America, Buy America Act requirements. These interrelated challenges create risks for awardees, including that funding will expire or no longer be available to the awardee. Approximately 23 percent of surveyed awardees for selected fiscal year 2022 discretionary grant programs reported that they did not have a signed grant agreement when they responded to GAO's survey from December 2024 to March 2025.

DOT has not fully assessed the risks posed by challenges awardees cited to the efficient and effective delivery of IIJA funds. While DOT has taken some steps, it has not comprehensively identified risks, fully assessed their likelihood and impact, and monitored them. For example, efforts GAO reviewed assess risks for a single program or individual projects but do not look across DOT's portfolio of grant programs. Fully assessing risks could help ensure that DOT has strategies to effectively address awardee challenges and guide DOT as it makes decisions about delivering the remaining billions in IIJA funding.

Why GAO Did This Study

DOT administers over 100 grant programs to provide billions of dollars each year to eligible entities to build highways, transit, and other infrastructure. DOT and grant recipients and awardees work to sign agreements, at which point DOT generally obligates the funding. If the grant funding is not obligated before the program's statutory deadline, the funding becomes unavailable. Deadlines vary by program. While some do not have deadlines, others have a deadline as early as September 30, 2025.

In January 2025, the current administration issued an executive order to pause the disbursement of certain funds appropriated through the IIJA. As of April 2025, DOT is reviewing projects without signed discretionary grant agreements for alignment with administration priorities.

This report (1) assesses the status of IIJA grant funding as of April 2025, (2) identifies challenges grant awardees reported facing, and (3) evaluates DOT actions to assess risks posed by reported awardee challenges.

GAO analyzed DOT funding data from USAspending.gov as of April 2025 and surveyed awardees of 316 projects from December 2024 to March 2025 and interviewed DOT officials and funding awardees.