Why it Matters
The clock is ticking on one of Washington's most consequential but least glamorous legislative tasks: rewriting the rules for how the federal government funds America's highways.
A Congressional Research Service report published April 4 lays out the challenge in stark terms. Federal highway program authorizations under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expire at the end of FY2026, forcing Congress to pass a new surface transportation reauthorization before then or risk disrupting the flow of federal-aid highway dollars to every state in the country.
The report arrives as the Trump administration is already moving to reshape the Biden-era infrastructure portfolio — and as the Highway Trust Fund, the primary financing mechanism for federal highway programs, edges closer to insolvency.
What Surface Transportation Reauthorization Actually Means
Every five years or so, Congress passes a sweeping highway reauthorization bill that sets funding levels, program structures, and policy priorities for the nation's roads and bridges. The current authorization — the IIJA, signed into law as P.L. 117-58 — committed a total of $365 billion for highway programs. That breaks down as $304 billion in contract authority drawn from the Highway Trust Fund, $47 billion in multiyear advance appropriations from the Treasury General Fund, and $15 billion in general fund budget authority subject to future appropriations.
The IIJA was a significant departure from its predecessors. It was the first surface transportation law to use multiyear advance appropriations, and it leaned more heavily on general fund transfers than prior laws like the FAST Act (P.L. 114-94) or MAP-21 (P.L. 112-141).
Now Congress must decide what comes next — and the decisions made during this reauthorization cycle will shape transportation infrastructure funding for at least the next five years.
The Highway Trust Fund Problem
The most pressing structural issue facing any highway reauthorization bill is the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. Federal fuel taxes — the HTF's primary revenue source — have not been raised since 1993. For decades, those revenues have lagged behind what the federal government actually spends on FHWA funding and related programs, requiring repeated general fund transfers to keep the HTF afloat.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that structural imbalance will continue and worsen. That puts Congress in a difficult position: find new revenue sources, cut highway spending, or keep transferring general fund dollars to paper over the gap.
For the Trump administration, which has emphasized fiscal austerity and deficit reduction, the prospect of continued general fund bailouts for the HTF creates a tension that the reauthorization debate will force into the open. Neither raising fuel taxes nor cutting transportation infrastructure funding is a politically straightforward path.
Formula Programs vs. Discretionary Grants: A Fault Line for Reauthorization
Federal highway programs are divided into two broad categories: formula programs, which are apportioned to states based on statutory criteria, and competitive discretionary grant programs, which are either awarded by the Federal Highway Administration or earmarked directly by Congress.
Under current law, each state must receive total formula program funding equal to at least 92 percent of its highway users' tax payments to the HTF — an equity provision designed to ensure states get back a meaningful share of what their drivers pay in fuel taxes.
The IIJA elevated the share of discretionary programs relative to prior authorizations, in part because formula programs received a disproportionate share of the law's advance appropriations. The Trump administration has shown skepticism toward competitive discretionary grant programs, which expanded significantly under the Biden administration. Reauthorization offers a vehicle to shift funding back toward formula-based apportionments to states — an approach more consistent with a federalism-oriented policy framework.
NEVI and the EV Infrastructure Question
One of the more politically charged elements of the reauthorization debate involves the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program — better known as NEVI — which the IIJA created to build out a national network of EV charging stations.
The CRS report notes that the FY2026 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, currently moving through Congress, would transfer roughly $1.5 billion in unobligated funds from the NEVI Program and the Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities Program to other highway priorities.
That move aligns directly with the Trump administration's stated goal of rolling back EV mandates and redirecting infrastructure spending away from clean energy programs. The reauthorization process is likely to formalize that shift — potentially eliminating or significantly scaling back NEVI as a standalone program.
The administration has also moved more broadly to freeze or rescind unobligated IIJA funds across multiple program areas. How much of the IIJA's programmatic architecture survives into the next authorization cycle is one of the central questions the reauthorization debate will answer.
Broader Context
Understanding the current debate requires some context on how federal highway programs have evolved. MAP-21, enacted in 2012, reduced the number of highway programs by roughly two-thirds, consolidating them into six core formula programs plus competitive discretionary grants. The FAST Act and the IIJA largely maintained that streamlined structure while layering on new programs like NEVI and the truck emissions reduction initiative.
The reauthorization process now gives Congress an opportunity to revisit that program portfolio — deciding which Biden-era additions survive, which get folded into existing programs, and which are eliminated entirely.
The Bottom Line
Despite the ideological tensions surrounding specific programs, surface transportation reauthorization has historically been one of Washington's more reliably bipartisan undertakings. Federal-aid highways reach every congressional district. Every governor has a stake in the outcome. States depend on the certainty of multi-year authorizations to plan and execute major infrastructure projects.
That dynamic creates pressure on both the administration and congressional leadership to negotiate a broad deal rather than pursue a purely partisan outcome — even as disagreements over the HTF, EV infrastructure, and the formula-versus-discretionary balance make the path forward complicated.
The FY2026 deadline is not abstract. If Congress fails to act, the authorization framework for federal highway programs lapses, creating uncertainty for state transportation departments, contractors, and the communities that depend on the projects they fund.
The CRS report makes clear the stakes: a structurally insolvent trust fund, a contested program portfolio, and a hard deadline. Congress has work to do.
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