Michael K. Friedberg, partner with the law firm of Holland & Knight and a member of its Transportation & Infrastructure Industry Sector Group, addresses the uncertainties surrounding continued federal funding of infrastructure projects in the second Trump Administration.

Infrastructure projects that were funded during the Biden administration are at an “inflection point,” Friedberg says. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act dispensed record funding levels for rail, highway, aviation and maritime projects. Some have been fully funded, the money obligated, and contracts signed between grantees and the federal government. In theory, such projects should be guaranteed a go-ahead, “but it remains to be seen what’s going to happen, and how fast those fundings are implemented,” he says, in light of the radical disruption in government agencies undertaken in the earliest days of the new Trump administration. “January,” Friedman observes, “has been a long year.”

Other major projects are still in the funding and approval pipeline, and their fate is uncertain. But Friedberg believes that Trump will be reluctant to halt initiatives for which jobs are already lined up.

That doesn’t mean that project sponsors can be complacent. In many cases, they’ll be required to rejustify grants, especially those that were approved through executive action as opposed to statutory authority. “The president has the right to review to make sure that programs are in line with his priorities,” Friedman says.

What some sponsors might do, he adds, is offer a larger share of private funding than was previously specified. “If you can do more of a match,” he notes, “you will always go to the top of the line.”

Friedberg hopes that the Trump administration will reduce the red tape needed to move infrastructure projects ahead. Currently, he says, it takes 500 days from the time a grant is awarded to when it becomes a signed contract.