President Donald Trump asked federal agencies a fairly basic question when he returned to office: What exactly are taxpayers still paying for? For billions of dollars flowing from two of the Biden administration's signature spending laws, the Department of Energy came back with an answer.
The Department of Agriculture came back with something closer to, "We reviewed it."
Great! What survived?
Well, about that.
Trump's Jan. 20, 2025, "Unleashing American Energy" order directed agencies to pause certain disbursements under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act while they reviewed whether the spending aligned with his administration's policies.
It was a sweeping order, but the assignment itself wasn't complicated: Review the money and determine what should continue.
The GAO recently examined how the USDA and Energy handled those reviews. Together, the two departments received about $164 billion in budget authority from the laws for programs covered by the GAO's examination, so this wasn't an exercise involving loose change found under Washington's couch cushions.
Energy's paperwork allows us to follow what happened. By the end of its review, Energy reported that 381 awards totaling about $19.6 billion would continue, while another 155 awards totaling approximately $9.1 billion were terminated.
Whatever you think about those decisions, there's a scorecard.
The USDA is where things get interesting. The department received approximately $37 billion for the programs the GAO examined and obligated $32.2 billion during fiscal years 2022 through 2025. The USDA officials said their reviews were completed by June 30, 2025, and reported terminating 34 contracts worth approximately $67 million.
Then the GAO tried to determine what happened to the rest. The USDA's information wasn't reliable enough for auditors to determine the status of all the awards the department reviewed. Officials couldn't identify which awards had been approved to continue, which had been modified, or whether additional awards had been canceled.
From the GAO:
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided federal funding to agencies, including the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Energy (DOE), for a wide range of efforts.
These efforts included projects to reduce wildfire risk, improve rural power production, and develop clean energy technologies. Of the $37 billion provided to USDA that was not later rescinded by Public Law 119-21, commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, USDA obligated $32.2 billion for fiscal years 2022 through 2025.
Of the $78 billion provided to DOE that was not later rescinded, DOE obligated $51 billion for fiscal years 2022 through 2025.
None of this means $37 billion disappeared, and it doesn't mean the USDA lost $32.2 billion. It doesn't even mean the underlying awards were improper. The problem is simpler: taxpayers can't look at the USDA's reviews and get the same basic answer Energy provided about what was examined, what continued, and what stopped.
We're talking about programs involving enormous amounts of public money. Some funded wildlife mitigation and conservation work, while others involved rural programs and climate-related initiatives created or expanded under the Biden administration.
Trump specifically ordered agencies to review this spending, and the USDA says it did.
A review becomes a pretty lousy accountability tool when auditors can't reliably reconstruct what it decided. The GAO didn't accuse USDA officials of stuffing cash into potato sacks and sneaking out the loading dock. Its criticism is considerably less cinematic and more believable: the USDA didn't maintain information reliable enough for auditors to determine what happened across the entire review.
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The comparison from Energy makes the problem harder to dismiss. Both departments faced the same change in administrations, both had to review major funding streams, and both dealt with programs carrying billions of dollars. Energy produced numbers showing 381 awards continuing and 155 being terminated, while the USDA produced 34 terminated contracts but left the GAO unable to establish the complete disposition of everything reviewed.
Federal spending debates usually turn into arguments over whether the government spends too much, too little, or on the wrong things. Before any of those arguments begin, taxpayers deserve something much simpler: tell us what happened to the money Congress authorized.
Energy managed to bring a scorecard; the USDA says it finished a review, so now it needs to show its work.