ATA, Transportation Groups Detail Highway Bill Priorities
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is among the groups recently calling on congressional transportation committees to ensure long-term funding for big-picture highway projects.
In a letter this month to House and Senate transportation leaders, ATA and dozens of stakeholders reminded policymakers of myriad benefits associated with the approval of multiyear highway legislation. The lawmakers intend to consider their comprehensive surface transportation measure as early as this fall. A September 2026 deadline is guiding Congress’ consideration of the bill.
“Highway, bridge and public transit investment levels for fiscal year 2026 should, at minimum, be carried forward with inflation adjustments, regardless of the previous budgetary source of these programs. These investments are needed for safety enhancements, infrastructure rebuild and congestion relief,” the groups wrote Sept. 4 to Reps. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), along with Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), House and Senate committee chairpersons and ranking members, respectively.
Stakeholders also recommended the adoption of additional enhanced safety features for connectivity corridors.
“Increased investment and research should be directed at improving roadway, public transit and work zone safety to ensure the traveling public and construction workers get home safely at the end of each day.”
And they expressed support for further streamlining the environmental permitting processes. As they explained: “Modernization of federal requirements can identify and eliminate challenges in the environmental review and permitting process that stand in the way of timely project delivery.”
The nearly six dozen groups that signed on to the letter to Congress concluded: “Together, these principles call for legislation that will help build a transportation system necessary to drive economic prosperity.”
Signees of the Letter Include
- American Trucking Associations
- American Road and Transportation Builders Association
- Associated General Contractors of America
- American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- National Retail Federation
- Association of American Railroads
- American Society of Civil Engineers
Transportation leaders on Capitol Hill have pointed to the potential for adopting a vast portfolio of emerging technologies, reforming Biden-era climate-centric projects and streamlining the federal environmental permitting processes.
“I think one of the things that is important as well is permitting reform,” Capito, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, affirmed during a hearing this summer. “I think if we can get bipartisan permitting reform, all of these dollars will go a lot faster and a lot more efficiently than they have in the past.”
The transportation leaders also plan to guarantee long-term funding for highway projects. At issue for Congress is the Highway Trust Fund, an account projected to fail to meet requisite obligations in about two years. The fund is used to assist states with the maintenance of surface transportation corridors. Revenue from the federal gas and diesel taxes — with rates last set in 1993 — maintain the account.
Federal highway programs function under congressional approval through the fall of 2026. Highway operations were last authorized as part of 2021’s Biden-era $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, known as the bipartisan infrastructure law.
In its 2025 report card, ASCE issued a D+ grade for the country’s intricate network of roadways.
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