Transportation Policy

America's Highway Fund Is Running Out of Money. Congress Wants To Spend New Funds on Not Fixing Highways.

Congress’ new infrastructure bill commissions a costly review of Amtrak’s food and beverage offerings and a study of yellow paint.

Ari Shtein | 5.20.2026 11:40 AM

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(Illustration: Midjourney)

As the national debt rises ever higher, Congress is gearing up to pass an enormous infrastructure spending bill.

Earlier this week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released the BUILD America 250 Act. The sprawling 1000-page bill combines some hits—including provisions to streamline environmental reviews of infrastructure projects—with some obvious misses.

Lawmakers claim that the bill would strengthen the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for both road maintenance and mass transit investments, by levying a new registration fee on electric vehicles (E.V.) and plug-in hybrids. But Marc Scribner, senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this site), tells Reason that it "won't come close to eliminating the revenue-outlay gap," since the bill fails to rein in the "irresponsible spending" that has doomed the fund to insolvency by 2028. Scribner's assessment seems to be shared by........

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