Funding Status: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act

Summary

What GAO Found The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided budget authorities for transportation, infrastructure, and energy projects. Together, the four agencies selected for this review—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of the Interior (Interior), National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and Department of Transportation (DOT)—obligated a majority of their IIJA or IRA funding. IIJA. Of the approximately $574.7 billion provided to them, the four agencies obligated about 76 percent and disbursed about 54 percent of obligated funds for fiscal years 2022 to 2025. IRA. Of the around $53.7 billion provided to them, EPA, Interior, and DOT obligated about 72 percent and disbursed about 60 percent of obligated funds for fiscal years 2022 through 2025. In July 2025, Congress rescinded $6.4 billion of the three agencies’ unobligated IRA funds per agencies’ data. Most selected agencies reported developing new processes to review IIJA and IRA funding in response to dozens of executive orders issued starting January 20, 2025. The agencies used a variety of approaches to implement reviews, such as searching for terms from executive orders like “diversity” or “environmental justice.” Senior leadership for all selected agencies made final decisions on whether awards should be approved without modification, modified (funded with changes to terms or amounts), or canceled (discontinued), according to selected agencies’ officials and documentation. The extent to which agencies continued to obligate and disburse IIJA and IRA funds during their reviews varied within and across agencies. As a result of their reviews, selected agencies reported approving about 9,500 awards ($128 billion) and canceling about 800 ($17.8 billion). More than 2,500 awards were pending a decision ($33.6 billion) as of varying dates shown below. Status of Selected Agencies’ Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act Funding Reviews, as of the Dates Indicated Note: Canceled awards include terminated, rescinded, or withdrawn awards, or awards discontinued by a recipient. Why GAO Did This Study The IIJA and IRA provided billions in federal funding to agencies to distribute through mechanisms like grants and loans. Beginning in January 2025, executive orders directed agencies to pause this funding to review it for consistency with administration priorities. Grant recipients have raised concerns that delays in distributing these funds affect their ability to implement their projects. GAO was asked to review the status of IIJA and IRA funding. This report describes selected agencies’ (1) IIJA and IRA budget authority, obligations, rescissions, and disbursements for fiscal years 2022 to 2025; (2) processes for reviewing IIJA and IRA funding in response to executive orders; and (3) IIJA and IRA funding review status. To address these objectives, GAO selected agencies with among the highest amount of combined IIJA and IRA funding. Of these agencies, GAO selected EPA, Interior, NTIA, and DOT for this report. GAO will report on the Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture separately. GAO analyzed the IIJA and IRA and financial data from agencies’ accounting systems and the agencies’ policies and guidance for reviewing IIJA and IRA funding. GAO also analyzed and summarized selected agency review data and found these data to be sufficiently reliable for the purpose of describing the status of reviews with some limitations. For example, EPA and NTIA did not provide all requested data. GAO also interviewed selected agency officials for each of the objectives. For more information, contact Anne Sit-Williams at sitwilliamsa@gao.gov or Elizabeth Repko at repkoe@gao.gov.