Council member Strauss told the briefing she had learned at a Puget Sound Regional Council meeting and from follow-up reporting that the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a memo calling for heightened review of federally funded projects, including bike lanes, EV charging infrastructure, climate investments and equity-focused projects. Strauss said the memo appears to require a retrospective review of projects awarded in the prior four years and warned some projects previously funded could be at risk of cancellation.

Strauss described the potential local impacts as including protected bike lanes, shared-use paths, electric-vehicle charging networks and other climate-related infrastructure, and said the guidance could affect projects already committed by federal grants. She said the memo’s language excluded certain "fully obligated" grants but did not define that term, and that the city’s affected departments—Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and the Office of Intergovernmental Relations (OIR)—were still assessing implications.

Strauss said she would work with the delegation and city partners to oppose efforts that would halt projects and called the memo an "unfortunate overreach" by the federal administration. Councilmembers asked for follow-up and additional detail; Strauss said the executive departments were monitoring the situation.