The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was passed and signed into law on July 4, 2025. This is an extremely large and complicated law which combines a number of Trump administration priorities into one piece of legislation. While we do not intend to cover every aspect or line item of this legislation, we are providing a summary of a few key aspects of the legislation for our clients as it relates to taxes, investments and the wider economy.
Our focus here will be the provisions included in the legislation related to our country’s transportation, infrastructure, national defense, immigration, and border security. These sections of the legislation contain a number of large spending provisions related to these issues and are fairly wide ranging. We have put together this information utilizing an analysis performed by Holland & Knight, LLP. Please see a summary of the OBBBA below relating to transportation, infrastructure, national defense, immigration, and border security policy.
- Transportation and Infrastructure
- Air Traffic Control (ATC) modernization – $12.5 billion down payment on a projected $31 billion plan to modernize the nation’s ATC system
- US Coast Guard – $24.6 billion for mission readiness
- NASA Priorities – $10 billion for various NASA projects and priorities
- FCC Spectrum Authority – restores FCC’s authority to auction spectrum and requires minimum amount of auctions
- Eliminates NHTSA CAFE civil penalties
- Rescinds funds from Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund
- Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) repeals and rescissions
- Funds for number of climate and alternative fuel grant programs intended as “Sustainable Aviation Funds”
- Sustainability funds for surface transportation grants and programs
- Funds for NOAA climate and environmental projects
- Various department secretary requirements
- Renegotiate leases for Washington-Dulles and Reagan International airports to bring up to market rate
- Reduce Brand USA Travel Promotion Fund to $20 million from $100 million
- DOT Secretary to impose fees for space launches and reentries based on payload weight
- National Defense
- $150 billion in one time funding to supplement current year defense budget and fund certain priorities with particular emphasis on ship-building, supply chain resilience, low-cost weapons and munitions production, DOD cybersecurity, nuclear modernization, Indo-Pacific Command capabilities and readiness initiatives
- Golden Dome missile defense system – makes $25 billion initial investment
- Quality of Life Improvements for military personnel will receive $9 billion
- Shipbuilding Industrial Base – provides $29 billion for enhancement of shipbuilding and shipbuilding industrial base
- Munitions and Supply Chain Resiliency initiatives receive $25 billion
- Scaling Low-Cost Weapons into production receives $16 billion (think drones, unmanned delivery systems, AI, etc.)
- Cybersecurity enhancements receive $380 million
- Air Superiority receives $9 billion
- Nuclear Forces receive $15 billion
- US Indo-Pacific Command capabilities receive $12 billion
- Improving Readiness initiatives receive $16 billion
- Border Support and Drugs initiatives receive $1 billion
- Oversight of Appropriations receives $10 million in funding
- Immigration and Border Security
- Fee increases – imposes new or higher fees for asylum, visas, temporary protected status (TPS) and certain employment authorizations
- Expand US Detention Capacity for those awaiting removal ($45 billion)
- Expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities ($29 billion)
- Expand DOJ capacity to hire new immigration judges and related staff; will also be used to reimburse state and local law enforcement for their detention costs ($3.3 billion)
- Reimburse state and local governments for border security efforts on or after 1/20/21 ($10 billion)
- Reimburse state and local governments for immigration enforcement activities on or after 1/20/21 ($3.5 billion)
- State and Local Readiness and Event Security including things such as 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and Operation Stonegarden grant program ($2.5 billion)