House Committee Advances Five-Year Transportation Reauthorization Bill

Action: On May 22, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved H.R. 8870, the BUILD America 250 Act, by a bipartisan vote of 62-2.¹ The bill would authorize approximately $580 billion over five years for highways, bridges, transit, passenger and freight rail, highway safety, motor carrier safety, and related transportation programs. The legislation now awaits further action by the full House and relevant Senate committees with jurisdiction over surface transportation.

Trusted Insights for What’s Ahead^®

• The Act is the House’s main proposal to reauthorize Federal surface transportation programs before current authorities expire on September 30, 2026. The annual funding level is modestly above the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s (IIJA) roughly $567 billion surface transportation authorization in nominal dollars.²
• It would provide major funding for core transportation programs, including about $376 billion for Federal Highway Administration programs, $87.6 billion for Federal Transit Administration programs, $5.7 billion for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration programs, and $5 billion for Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration programs.³ It would also authorize significant funding for rail, competitive bridge grants, and other grants programs from the General Fund.
• It would be the successor to the IIJA’s surface transportation authorization, introducing a different funding structure: about $474.4 billion would be guaranteed Highway Trust Fund contract authority, while roughly $106 billion would be authorized from the General Fund subject to future appropriations. This makes annual funding decisions especially important for rail, transit, bridge, and multimodal grants.
• Because the Highway Trust Fund already faces a structural gap between dedicated revenues and authorized spending, the bill’s reliance on this authority would not improve solvency unless accompanied by new revenues, spending reductions, or transfers to sustain the fund.⁴
• The bill authorizes large overall investment but does not specifically break down funding between existing assets and new capacity. Many core programs are flexible enough to fund repair, rehabilitation, safety upgrades, freight improvements, and capacity expansion, so the final mix will depend on state and local project choices, competitive grant criteria, and future appropriations.
• National infrastructure needs remain heavily weighted toward maintenance: ARTBA estimates that $467 billion is needed for identified bridge repairs, Pew estimates a $105 billion state and local deferred maintenance gap for roads and bridges, and ASCE cites a broader $1.1 trillion highway and bridge investment backlog. For roads specifically, the most recent national assessment estimates $151.1 billion in average annual investment needs through 2038, including $87 billion for system rehabilitation, $20.8 billion for system enhancement, and $43.3 billion for system expansion.⁵
• The bill would also scale back some climate and resilience programs in the IIJA while retaining discretionary resilience grants; shift electric vehicle charging funds into a broader set-aside for alternative fueling infrastructure for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (not cars); continue major freight and rail grant programs; codify the federal freight data-sharing program; and incorporate new rail safety requirements under the Railway Safety Act of 2026.