Buttigieg's baggage from DOT looms as 2028 issue

"They argue that Buttigieg was at times unable to navigate the federal bureaucracy to get hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure projects built or launched quickly enough, and that such failures contributed to Donald Trump returning to the White House. Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Ind., has little other governing experience to run on, so his tenure as transportation secretary would be critical to convincing voters he's up to being president, were he to run again."

"The massive infrastructure law Biden signed in November 2021 gave Buttigieg's Transportation Department $551 billion to distribute to local governments, states and other organizations. By the end of the administration, the Transportation Department boasted that "more than 22,000 projects that received [DOT] funding are already completed or well on their way." But as of October 2024, almost 30% of the department's available money hadn't been awarded."

"Early in the Trump administration, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote that as of April 2025, the Transportation Department "had yet to obligate almost $178 billion" in available funding from the infrastructure bill - "about 41% of the almost $438 billion authorized and appropriated" for fiscal years 2022 through 2025. The GAO also found that 82% of the funds' recipients had found the environmental review process by Buttigieg's Transportation Department moderately or very challenging."

Buttigieg faced challenges moving large federal infrastructure efforts quickly, with the Transportation Department receiving $551 billion from the 2021 infrastructure law. The department reported more than 22,000 projects completed or underway, yet nearly 30% of available funds remained unawarded as of October 2024. The GAO reported that by April 2025 the department had not obligated almost $178 billion, roughly 41% of about $438 billion authorized and appropriated for fiscal years 2022–2025. Eighty-two percent of recipients found the environmental review process moderately or very challenging. Democrats also raised concerns about FAA modernization and management.

Read at Axios