Highway Trust Fund Expires: Infrastructure Funding at Crossroads

Why it Matters

The Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) FY2027 budget hearing arrives at a consequential moment for American infrastructure. The Highway Trust Fund's (HTF) spending authorizations expire at the end of fiscal year 2026, the five-year Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) highway funding window is closing, and the Trump administration is proposing the cancellation of billions in EV charging infrastructure funds while states are suing the federal government over withheld highway money. What senators examine on Wednesday, June 3 in 406 Dirksen will shape whether the country's road and bridge funding enters a period of stability or crisis.

The Big Picture

The administration's FY2027 budget proposal, released April 3, 2026, puts $66.2 billion on the table for the Federal Highway Administration, a figure that lands against a backdrop of expiring authorizations and active legal battles over how existing funds have been managed. The Department of Transportation's total discretionary budget authority in the proposal sits at $26.6 billion, a $1.6 billion (6.2%) increase over the FY2026 enacted level, according to the National Association of Development Organizations. But the headline numbers obscure a fight embedded in the FY2027 transportation budget: the administration is proposing to eliminate unobligated balances from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program, moves it describes as "consistent with the President's Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy."

That proposal lands in legally contested territory. A federal court ruled in January 2026 that the administration's 2025 freeze of the NEVI program was illegal, restoring states' access to funds. The Eno Center for Transportation confirmed the program "resumed momentum" after that court order. Now the administration is attempting to accomplish through the appropriations process what it could not sustain in court, making the FHWA FY2027 budget hearing a direct venue for that fight.

What They're Saying

Looming over the entire hearing is the imminent expiration of the Highway Trust Fund's spending authorizations. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation has reported that those authorizations expire at the end of fiscal year 2026 and that the HTF itself is projected to be depleted by 2028. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided approximately $350 billion for federal highway programs over fiscal years 2022 through 2026, a funding window that is now closing. Congress has not yet acted on reauthorization, making the FY2027 budget request the first federal highway appropriations ask that arrives without the IIJA's guaranteed floor beneath it.

For states, metropolitan planning organizations, and transportation departments that have built multi-year project pipelines around IIJA certainty, the gap between what the administration is proposing and what a post-IIJA reauthorization might provide determines whether projects that are designed and permitted get built.

Political Stakes

The committee will hear from members whose states are already in active conflict with the administration over highway funds. New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul filed suit to block what they characterized as the "unlawful cancellation of more than $73 million in highway funding for New York." Illinois faced a threat from the Department of Transportation to withhold $128 million in federal highway funding over a dispute about commercial driver licenses. Meanwhile, the Brookings Institution has documented that DOGE-related staffing and program cuts at the Department of Transportation have created what it called "anxiety around the federal direction going forward, especially within the transportation and water sectors," with freezes in federal infrastructure funding stalling some projects.

What the FHWA FY2027 Budget Hearing Will Actually Test

The Senate EPW Committee hearing on the Federal Highway Administration budget request is structured as a routine oversight exercise, but the questions senators are positioned to ask go well beyond line items. Can the administration explain how it squares its proposed cancellation of NEVI unobligated balances with a federal court ruling that its previous freeze of those same funds was illegal? How does the administration plan to maintain highway program continuity as IIJA authorizations expire? What is the plan for the Highway Trust Fund before it hits insolvency in 2028?

The witnesses have not yet been announced, but the most consequential testimony would come from FHWA Administrator representatives who can speak to both the budget's construction and the administration's posture on state funding disputes. The committee's membership — which includes senators from states actively contesting federal highway funding decisions — gives the hearing a sharper edge than a standard budget review.

Highway Infrastructure Funding and the Broader Political Landscape

The FY2027 transportation budget lands in a Congress consumed by the reconciliation process and a White House that has used infrastructure funding as a lever in disputes with Democratic-led states. The FHWA appropriations question is not isolated from that broader dynamic. When the administration withholds or cancels highway funds from New York or threatens Illinois, it is making political calculations alongside policy ones — and the Senate EPW Committee hearing is one of the few forums where those calculations face structured, public scrutiny.

For the millions of Americans whose daily commutes run on federally funded roads and bridges, what gets resolved — or left unresolved — in Wednesday's hearing has direct consequences. Federal highway infrastructure funding decisions made now will determine which projects break ground, which bridges get repaired, and whether the transition away from IIJA certainty is managed or chaotic.