Staff Reports
The Government Accountability Office just released a clear report: one cabinet agency kept a clean scorecard and another did not. Taxpayers want to know which projects survived the administration’s review of Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act money. The GAO found that the Department of Energy gave a readable answer. The Department of Agriculture did not.
GAO’s new report: USDA can’t show what continued
The GAO report (GAO-26-109087) says USDA reviewed billions in IRA and IIJA funding but left auditors unable to follow the results. USDA received about $37 billion in budget authority for the covered programs and obligated $32.2 billion for fiscal years 2022–2025. USDA reports it completed its review by June 30, 2025 and said it terminated 34 contracts worth roughly $67 million. But GAO found USDA’s records were not reliable enough to determine which awards were approved to continue, which were modified, or whether other awards were canceled. In plain English: the department says it looked, but it can’t show its work.
DOE did its homework — and gave a scorecard
By contrast, the Department of Energy produced an auditable tally. DOE had about $78 billion in budget authority and obligated $51 billion. DOE reported approving 381 awards totaling about $19.6 billion to continue and canceling 155 awards totaling about $9.1 billion. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced the terminations and defended the review. If you like numbers and accountability, DOE’s report reads like a scorecard. If you prefer mystery, USDA’s file cabinet is for you.
Why this matters: transparency, projects, and taxpayers
This isn’t bookkeeping for its own sake. These were real grants and contracts funding wildfire mitigation, rural power projects, clean energy pilot programs, and more. State and local partners complained that pauses and uncertainty disrupted planning. Taxpayers deserve to know what federal money Congress approved is still moving, what was stopped, and why. When an agency can’t answer that, oversight and accountability break down — even if no one stole the cash, the lack of transparency is a problem.
What should happen next
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins should post award‑level information and explain the data gaps so auditors and the public can reconstruct the review. Congress should press for answers and require clear reporting standards for IRA and IIJA funds. And OMB and USDA should fix their recordkeeping so future reviews don’t turn into guesswork. At the end of the day, the ask is simple: if the government paused billions in spending, it should at least be able to show a receipt. No more shrugging and “we reviewed it.”
