crs_reports: R48947

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R48947 Department of Transportation FY2027 Funding Request 2026-05-14T04:00:00Z 2026-05-16T04:53:20Z Active Reports William J. Mallett, John Frittelli, Ben Goldman, Ali E. Lohman, Jennifer J. Marshall, Naseeb A. Souweidane, Rachel Y. Tang   The Department of Transportation (DOT) is responsible for the federal regulation and funding of most modes of U.S. transportation. DOT is mainly organized into operating administrations that each oversee a mode of transportation (e.g., Federal Aviation Administration [FAA]) or maintain responsibility for a certain aspect of transportation (e.g., Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration). Two DOT offices—the Office of the Secretary (OST) and the Office of Inspector General (OIG)—have department-wide responsibilities. DOT also includes the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (GLSDC), a wholly owned government corporation that operates and maintains two locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway and other aspects of navigation infrastructure. The Trump Administration’s FY2027 budget request for DOT by operating administration and office was released in April 2026. This report compares the President’s request with FY2026 enacted funding. This report also presents enacted funding for FY2022-FY2025 to provide additional context for the funding request. For surface transportation modes, FY2022-FY2026 is the period covered by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA; P.L. 117-58), which authorizes federal spending on surface transportation. Congress reportedly is developing new surface transportation reauthorization legislation, but such legislation had not been introduced as of the publication of this report. For aviation, FY2022-FY2026 spans time periods covered by the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-254) and the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (P.L. 118-63). (FAA is the Federal Aviation Administration.) CRS derived requested and enacted funding data primarily from DOT’s “budget estimates” documents. Overall, DOT’s budget request for FY2027 ($113.9 billion) is 23% lower than FY2026 enacted funding ($148.5 billion). The reduction comes mainly from the absence of a Trump Administration request for the provision of multiyear advance appropriations beyond FY2026 (as was provided in Division J of the IIJA), which would be a reduction of about $12.9 billion for Amtrak and other railroad grants alone; a requested reduction in annual appropriations for the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA’s) Capital Investment Grant Program from $1.7 billion in FY2026 to $1.2 billion for FY2027; a requested reduction in annual appropriations for OST’s National Infrastructure Investments from $145 million in FY2026 to $0 for FY2027; and a requested reduction in annual appropriations to OST for the Essential Air Service program from $514 million in FY2026 to $142 million for FY2027. DOT’s budget request proposes a funding increase for some of its areas of responsibility, including funding increases for FAA to hire more air traffic controllers, shipbuilding programs administered by the Maritime Administration (MARAD), and OST to establish a “DC Safe & Beautiful Fund.” The FY2027 budget request would increase DOT full-time equivalent (FTE) staff by about 1,400, from 52,600 in FY2026 to 54,000 in FY2027. Most of the increase would come from adding employees at FAA. MARAD FTE staff also would increase. The budget request would reduce FTEs in most other administrations and offices, mainly expected from centralization of some administrative support services (e.g., information technology) in OST. According to data from DOT, some modal administrations had fewer staff in FY2026 than in FY2025. The agencies that experienced some of the largest staff reductions in percentage terms from FY2025 to FY2026 were the Federal Highway Administration (-24%), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (-23%), FTA (-20%), Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (-10%), and Federal Railroad Administration (-9%). https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48947/R48947.10.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R48947.html

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