Transportation interests are urging Washington to fully fund projects for the current fiscal year with a stopgap continuing resolution while this current do-little Congress gets ready for its autumn election-year recess with precious few working days left on its Congressional calendar.
Congress is currently considering the BUILD America 250 Act ahead of the Sept. 30, 2026 expiration of the current law. It is a five-year, $580 billion surface transportation reauthorization that focuses heavily on roads, bridges and freight.
This proposal follows the President Joe Biden-backed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), widely known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Enacted in November 2021, this was a $1.2 trillion piece of legislation that was President Biden’s signature bill.
In a letter sent by 64 leading transportation groups—including the Chamber of Commerce, American Trucking Associations, Road & Transportation Builders Association, the National Urban League, among others—these leaders reminded Congress of the importance of federal investment in America’s roads and bridges.
“The federal government’s investment in our nation’s transportation network provides immense value to the American public,” the letter said.
While these organizations still support a “full, robust reauthorization” of the federal surface transportation programs, they urged Congress to preserve the FY 2026 funding levels enacted for all federal transportation programs.
These include those programs funded through the Highway Trust Fund and advance appropriations, as part of and in the event of any short-term government funding measure or surface transportation program extension that may become necessary.
Congress has many things on its to-do list. Most importantly, it must fund itself.
To prevent a government shutdown, both the House and Senate must pass identical funding legislation before the Sept. 30 deadline. The Senate was scheduled to recess from Aug.7 through Sept. 14. That leaves a limited number of legislative days before the end of the fiscal year.
If the Senate amends the House-passed measure, it would need to return to the House for approval before it could be sent to the president.
With a handful of legislative workdays remaining, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was expected to bring a continuing resolution to the House floor this month to provide government funding from Oct. 1, the start of fiscal year 2027, through the November midterm elections.
Any decision by Congress to reduce funding to federal transportation programs as part of any short-term continuing resolution or extension of the surface transportation programs will inject uncertainty into state and local investment decisions. That potentially lead to delays in completing or commencing work on critical infrastructure projects that benefit the safety of our nation’s travelers, support our nation’s economy and help create and maintain important jobs, the transportation groups’ letter said.
“These decisions are better made during the full-year annual appropriations or surface transportation reauthorization debates,” the groups’ letter said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the administration would like its transportation priorities included in any short-term extension if Congress is unable to pass a full surface transportation reauthorization before the deadline.
Randy Mullett, retired member of Con-way’s Executive Leadership Team and long-time D.C.-based transportation lobbyist, observed that BUILD is one of the most partisan transportation infrastructure-focused bills in decades, pointing to it passing nearly unanimously out of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.
“I think that it’s one of those things where common sense, common goals, and getting back to the basics of transportation, which are back to that safety and efficiency, is key,” he said. “Make capacity increases where we need them, keep bottlenecks at a minimum, and invest in those things that slow the system down. From a policy point of view, the focus on bottlenecks, a national freight network, and connectivity between modes are really important.”
