Elon Musk (Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (Facebook).
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WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are pushing back on White House efforts to halt transportation initiatives launched during the Biden administration, stressing that efforts led by billionaire Elon Musk to drastically scale down federal agencies threaten to derail progress already made, chill future growth and stymie Congress’ ability to craft long-term transportation legislation.
“We were to have co-equal branches of government with checks and balances, not rubber stamps, and first among those co-equal branches is the legislative branch — Congress, us,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee on highway policy and a key figure in advancing a new transportation reauthorization bill. The Rhode Island Democrat has been critical of both Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the administration.
“Until our existing laws are respected, the work that we, as a committee and as a Congress, put into writing new laws will cease to matter,” he said.
Whitehouse pointed specifically to U.S. Department of Transportation directives that paused certain electric vehicle priorities. The Federal Highway Administration announced last month it is reviewing the multibillion-dollar National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program created to establish a network of EV chargers.
More than two dozen House Democrats also raised concerns about the pause to the EV program. Led by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure panel, the lawmakers urged DOT Secretary Sean Duffy to unfreeze the funds.
“We support cleaner, greener, safer, more accessible infrastructure — and the NEVI program is a step in the right direction to meet these goals,” the House Democrats wrote Feb. 11. “As members of Congress, we will fiercely defend investments enacted on a bipartisan basis by elected officials from across the country. Actions taken by the department over the last two weeks show a blatant disregard for Congress, for the law, for the state and for the local partners who deliver infrastructure projects, and for American workers.”
Trucks charging at a Voltera charging station. (Voltera)
Larsen and fellow senior Democrats have been sounding the alarm about DOGE-claimed reductions at agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as potential conflicts of interest. Musk’s vast business portfolio includes federal contracts.
RELATED: Musk Team Lays Off NHTSA Workers Overseeing Tesla
DOGE, established in January, is tasked by a White House executive order with modernizing “federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” During a Cabinet meeting at the White House last month, Musk explained, “The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the enormous deficit. We simply cannot sustain, as a country, $2 trillion deficits.”
Republican leaders in Congress remain staunch supporters of President Donald Trump’s examination of federal agencies and his policy agenda. Atop the president’s aims is expanding domestic energy resources. As Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) noted last month: “I’ve recently been hearing our Democrat colleagues express newfound interest in fighting inflation. If they’re serious about that, they should be joining us in blocking these anti-energy policies that are driving prices up. But with Democrats or without, Republicans will keep working to build a more secure and more affordable energy future.”
Current transportation policy authority is approved through the fall of 2026. The previous authorization of highway programs was included in 2021’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This Biden-era bipartisan infrastructure law dedicates billions of dollars for freight and commuter connectivity programs.
Democratic leaders have expressed doubts about their ability to draft bipartisan surface transportation legislation in the current environment. During a committee hearing last month to explore a path for updating the nation’s highway network, Whitehouse said his caucus would be unwilling to negotiate a new bill if the administration continues “canceling or delaying essential funding nationwide, putting our bridges, our safety and even lives at risk.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) on March 4 urged his Democratic colleagues to focus on consumers’ everyday financial challenges. “When people complain about the price of eggs, you can try to make political hay about it, [or] you can try to do something about it. And you do something about it by lowering the energy cost, the cost to get products to the grocery store.”
As for Duffy, shortly after arriving at DOT, he observed: “Our focus remains on ushering in a golden age of transportation while prioritizing the department’s core mission of safety and delivering innovative projects that move America.”
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