The Transportation Department is working to steer federal money toward communities with higher rates of marriages and births and away from communities that impose mask and vaccine mandates or refuse to enforce federal immigration law.
The language was included in a series of orders that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued Wednesday night governing the department’s grants and loans — and it’s drawing pushback from state and local officials, as well as environmental justice groups.
The directive also prioritized approving projects that pay for themselves through tolls or other means. And it told agency leaders to rely on a 2003 memo when calculating the social cost of carbon for projects.
Carried to their fullest extent, the order could slow construction of mass transit at a time when it’s needed to confront climate change and steer billions of dollars in federal funds toward rural areas that rely more on road transportation.