Congress will get at least one more chance to do something big and bipartisan this year: pass a highway bill.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), which passed in 2021, expires Sept. 30, and Congress has been gearing up to craft its multi-year replacement. Usually, surface-transportation measures attract broad backing from both sides of the aisle. But anyone who’s been watching Capitol Hill these days knows that even the most mundane or seemingly bipartisan legislation can crash into ideological roadblocks.
One factor that might smooth the path for this legislation is the GOP majority's uphill battle in the midterms. Republicans are facing the likely loss of at least one chamber in November, and GOP leaders are aware that punting the issue into next year means they’d almost certainly have less say in the final product.
The bill’s price tag
The nation’s road system faces a $684 billion funding gap over the next 10 years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. There’s a nearly $200 billion gap between the resources available for bridges and identified needs. A similar gap exists for transit over the next decade, ASCE found.
The first order of business will be deciding on the size and scope of the package. The bill passed five years ago rolled in at a steep $1.2 trillion, but it also included elements that were not directly transportation-related, such as broadband expansion, water infrastructure, environmental remediation, and clean-energy projects.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves has less ambitious plans for the next five-year program. He laid out a $500-$550 billion target that focuses on traditional transportation cornerstones: highways, transit, railways, and ports.
The size will also depend on the revenues the gas taxes and transportation fees can generate. Since 2008, Congress has appropriated more than $270 billion to the Highway Trust Fund to keep it solvent. Freedom Caucus Republicans figure to be especially resistant about further driving up a federal debt that has already risen above $39.2 trillion, but that concern might be drowned out by lawmakers’ eagerness during the fall campaign to tout high-profile capital projects back home.
How to pay for it
The reason the trust fund has a growing shortfall is twofold: Vehicles have become more fuel-efficient over the decades, and Congress has refused to hike the federal tax on gas (18.4 cents per gallon) and diesel (24.4 cents per gallon). Both are unchanged since 1993, but any appetite on Capitol Hill to raise either tax died with soaring fuel prices due to the Iran war.
Also complicating the math is the fact that gas consumption has fallen in recent weeks as a result of the war, according to one analysis.
In addition, the cost of building materials has increased due to President Trump’s tariffs. If it costs more to build a road or upgrade a port, stakeholders will demand a larger surface-transportation bill.
Electric-vehicle surcharge
One potential source of revenue could come from a federal fee on electric and hybrid vehicles, which contribute to wear and tear of the nation’s highways and bridges without contributing as much into the trust fund as fully gas-powered cars and trucks (in the case of EVs, zero).
How much to charge remains a matter of debate. Following the lead of many states, Graves was able to include a $250 registration fee for EVs and $100 for hybrids in the House version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but the provision was dropped in the final version. He told Politico he plans to introduce a similar charge in the highway bill but did not specify how much.
Several GOP senators led by Sen. Deb Fischer have floated a proposal to charge a one-time $1,000 fee on EVs at the time of purchase to cover road repairs.
“EVs can weigh up to three times as much as gas-powered cars, creating more wear and tear on our roads and bridges,” Fischer said in a release last year announcing her Fair SHARE Act. “It’s only fair that they pay into the Highway Trust Fund just like other cars do.”
It’s unclear whether that has any chance of passage, but it appears there’s momentum for some sort of fee to compensate for a loss of gas-tax revenue.
States push changes to formula-based funding
As it has in previous surface-transportation cycles, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is pushing for more flexibility in how states can spend their federal aid.
Aside from wanting a bill that’s larger than the current measure’s baseline amount, AASHTO wants the next bill to require that 95 percent of formula-based funding go directly to states. Currently, it’s 90 percent, with the remaining money set aside for competitive or discretionary grants. And the states want more flexibility in how they can spend that formula money.
There’s also the question of earmarks, the pet projects lawmakers try to insert into every highway bill, which will likely be part of the upcoming package. State officials generally don’t like earmarks because those can include projects not on a state’s priority list. But earmarks serve a valuable function by getting on-the-fence lawmakers to back a bill that includes money for specific constituent benefit.
What else might be added
Because the transportation bill might be one of the last measures with a decent chance of passing this year, expect to see lawmakers try to add other legislative priorities.
Most such efforts will come up short, but one that could gain momentum is permit reform. Key members of both parties already are working on a compromise to speed up the lengthy federal process of approving large projects, such as energy plants. And Graves has endorsed the idea of adding such a provision because it would accelerate the building of bridges and highways.
“It takes an average of seven years for highway projects to complete an environmental impact study—just one step in the process before a shovel can go into the ground. Some project delays can last decades,” Graves wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Times in December.
“This is unacceptable. Builders, businesses and local communities are waiting years before construction on critical projects can even begin. Time is money, and we’re wasting a lot of both because of ineffective review processes and overregulation.”
