New Trump order appears to threaten MD transportation projects

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ANNAPOLIS — A memo from the new U.S. transportation secretary appears to threaten Maryland’s transportation projects, particularly those dealing with the effects of climate change or the expansion of electric vehicle equipment, but perhaps across the board.

The memo from Secretary Sean Duffy lists initial steps the USDOT will take to implement President Donald Trump‘s executive orders on energy, climate change, diversity and gender.

The vast majority of Maryland’s transportation projects are reliant on federal funding.

Del. Marc Korman, a Democrat who chairs the House committee on transportation and the environment, called on the Maryland Department of Transportation and Attorney General Anthony Brown to review the recent memos, along with Trump’s executive orders, for compliance with federal law.

“Maryland should lead the way in filing suit to halt any efforts that undermine Congress’s constitutional spending powers,” he wrote in a text.

To Korman, the recent order appears to threaten the existence of at least two federal programs — one for carbon reduction and another for national electric vehicle infrastructure.

The two programs — which the state has relied on for building electric vehicle chargers and paying for transportation projects, including roadway safety in Korman’s district — are expected to contribute nearly $30 million for Maryland’s transportation budget next fiscal year.

A spokesperson for Brown declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Del. Courtney Watson, a Democrat who chairs the House budget subcommittee on transportation and the environment, said she wasn’t aware of the order when she met with Wiedefeld on Thursday afternoon, though they discussed the need to be ready for “unpredictable actions” from the federal government.

Watson said Friday that it appeared the order was meant to threaten policies on clean energy and reducing the effects of climate change, including those in Maryland and other blue states.

“As someone who represents a town that was devastated twice by climate change-induced rain storms, this is very concerning,” Watson wrote in a text, referencing catastrophic floods in Ellicott City in 2016 and 2018 that killed multiple people and left massive damage in their wakes.

Immediately after being sworn in on Wednesday, Duffy rescinded the USDOT equity council, a federal policy on climate change adaptation and resilience for agency operations, and actions to address environmental justice in minority and low-income populations, the memo states.

The memo and an accompanying order state that the USDOT will prioritize projects and goals that, among other factors, give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average, prohibit recipients of federal transportation aid from imposing vaccine and mask mandates, and require local compliance or cooperation with federal immigrant enforcement.

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The president has directed agencies to eliminate seemingly any action, including funding agreements and programs, that reference or relate in any way to climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, racial equity, gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion goals, and environmental justice, the order states.

USDOT administrators and Duffy’s staff members are expected to issue a report on all of the relevant policies and measures by the end of the first week of February at the latest.

Within 10 days of submitting the report, the USDOT is expected to “rescind, cancel, revoke and terminate” the relevant policies and measures.

Speaking about the threat that Trump’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and policies poses for Maryland, Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat, said that any conditions used to block federal funding for state transportation projects would “create a huge problem for us.”

Ferguson said he’s concerned about Trump’s team requiring states to remove certain policies to have access to grants on which they’ve historically relied, and Maryland has inclusion goals “in almost every sector of our public investments.”

The Senate president said he doesn’t believe the White House’s orders will be so extensive as to require Maryland to remove inclusion goals from every aspect of state government before accessing transportation dollars, but he’s concerned about funding for new projects or future investments.

“If there are conditions attached to those dollars that include the removal of Maryland state-based policies,” he said, “I think we’re going to have to have probably a serious fight about it.”