CAGTC Members,
At the request of Members of Congress, GAO conducted an assessment of USDOT’s process for evaluating and selecting awards under the INFRA program. Yesterday, GAO publicized its findings in a report titled, “DISCRETIONARY TRANSPORTATION GRANTS: Actions Needed to Improve Consistency and Transparency in DOT's Application Evaluations.” The full report can be found here. Per the report, GAO “…reviewed DOT’s processes used to evaluate and award FASTLANE grants and found issues related to consistency and transparency. Specifically, we found that due to inconsistencies in DOT’s review of applications and limited documentation of decisions regarding awards, we were unable to determine the rationale DOT used to award projects. We have repeatedly found similar issues related to consistency and transparency in our prior reviews of DOT’s various discretionary grant programs, beginning in 2011.” Notably, in its letter to Congressional authorizers, “The next reauthorization of surface transportation programs provides Congress the opportunity to build requirements for greater consistency and transparency into DOT’s grant programs.” CAGTC has also asked Congress to require USDOT provide transparency in its decision making.
GAO was unable to determine the rationale for the selection of projects for INFRA awards; an issue GAO also found with the FASTLANE process. GAO cited that this is due to: 1) inconsistency in the NOFO regarding how merit criteria would be used to select awardees; 2) a large number of applications forwarded for potential award regardless of merit scoring; and 3) limited documentation regarding why 26 projects were ultimately selected out of 165 for award.
GAO produced three recommendations:
- The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that DOT, in its notice of funding opportunity and evaluation plan for each remaining INFRA funding cycle, clarify the circumstances under which DOT may select applicants to receive requests for additional information.
- The Secretary of Transportation should develop procedures for each remaining INFRA-funding cycle to ensure that when additional information is requested from an applicant, the specific rationale behind the request is documented (for example, to promote geographic diversity among projects), as well as to ensure that DOT documents the rationale if similar projects were not afforded an opportunity to provide additional information.
- The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that DOT provides information to applicants in its notice of funding opportunity for each remaining INFRA-funding cycle regarding: (1) how scores on merit criteria are used, if at all, to determine whether projects advance to the Secretary for selection, and (2) how, if at all, DOT plans to use merit scores to determine which projects should receive an award.
USDOT concurred with GAO’s recommendations.
Thanks,
Cecile
Cecile Entleitner
Manager, Member Communications & Policy
Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors
1625 K Street NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
tradecorridors.org
(202) 828-9100