Congress Returns Nov. 9 With $10.8 Billion in Road Funds at Risk

• The 2021 infrastructure law’s extra road and bridge money lapsed Oct. 1, while core highway programs run only until Dec. 11.
• Pew Charitable Trusts says states could see an immediate 13% cut in road and bridge funding, and a report from Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office puts the formula money at risk at $10.8 billion nationwide.
• Congress returns Nov. 9 with five legislative weeks to act, and the bridge, safety and repair projects in your state depend on what it does.

The Stopgap Kept the Core Program and Dropped the Extra Money

Congress returns to Washington on Monday, Nov. 9, facing an unresolved funding gap: the federal money that paid for a large share of the nation’s road and bridge work under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) expired on Oct. 1. The stopgap funding law signed Sept. 2 pushed the core highway programs to Dec. 11. It left out the advance appropriations, the pre-approved extra dollars the 2021 law set aside for each year from fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2026.

The size of the gap depends on who is counting. Pew Charitable Trusts warns that unless lawmakers renew or replace those advance funds, road and bridge funding to states could drop 13% right away, extension or not. A report released Oct. 27 by the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees commerce, science and transportation, counts $36.8 billion in advance appropriations that went unrenewed and $10.8 billion in formula funding at risk nationwide.

That lapse reaches road, safety and bridge projects in every part of the country as state and local agencies try to plan ahead. The American Society of Civil Engineers and the National League of Cities have both pushed Congress to address it.

What Lapsed and What Did Not

The 2021 law gave the nation’s roads and bridges $326 billion, Pew says. Of that, $273 billion, or 83%, came as formula funding, money Washington hands to states by a set formula tied to population and miles of road. Another $53 billion went out as competitive grants that local governments can win directly. Pew says the IIJA raised formula funding 32% above the 2015 FAST Act and put about $40 billion, or 22%, more into bridges.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) breaks the highway side into three pieces. Of $365 billion for highway programs, $304 billion is contract authority from the Highway Trust Fund, $47 billion is advance appropriations from the Treasury’s general fund and $15 billion is authorized subject to future appropriation. The $365 billion covers the full set of highway programs, a wider scope than Pew’s $326 billion for roads and bridges, so the two numbers do not add up or cancel out.

The $47 billion is the part in dispute. Advance appropriations need no further action from Congress in later years, and the IIJA was the first surface transportation law to use them. Short-term extensions have long kept the Highway Trust Fund programs running. Pew notes that this approach does not automatically carry advance appropriations forward, and that is what happened in September.

Two formula programs run on the pre-approved dollars, CRS finds: the Bridge Formula Program for highway bridge repair and construction, and the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program for public charging. The National Association of Counties (NACo) says the Bridge Formula Program was stood up and funded entirely through the IIJA’s advance appropriations, while core highway programs got a boost from the same source.

Each estimate of the hit covers a different slice. Pew’s 13% applies to road and bridge funding. NACo, writing before the stopgap became law, said that leaving the advance appropriations out would cut overall transportation funding levels by more than 15 percent, a total that includes rail and transit.

What Your State Could Lose

The Cantwell report shows how unevenly the lapse lands. Three freight states show the range.

Pennsylvania faces $539.1 million in formula funding at risk. That total includes $353.4 million from the Bridge Formula Program, which is a 100% reduction to that program, and $18.6 million from the Appalachian Development Highway System, a program run with the Appalachian Regional Commission to build corridor highways through hilly, hard-to-reach country. Together those two lines come to $372.0 million.

Ohio faces a $218.3 million cut to formula funding. The report lists $104.3 million of that from the Bridge Formula Program and $20.4 million from the Appalachian program, which adds up to $124.7 million in bridge and corridor money.

Texas faces $494 million in formula cuts. Small safety lines sit inside that total: $3 million for the federal highway safety program that backs safe driving campaigns and $8 million for the motor carrier program that helps states police trucking. The biggest of the three lines the report details is the $86.9 million the state would lose for electric vehicle fast chargers, a 100% cut to that program. The House reauthorization bill described below would add a proposed $130 federal fee for electric vehicle owners, but that fee is a proposal and not law.

Competitive grants take a hit nationally too. Without advance appropriations, Safe Streets and Roads for All gets nothing, and neither does the Mega Program, the grant source for big projects and for safe truck parking (the truck parking shortage is the need it targets). The INFRA freight and highway grant program loses 37% in the Cantwell figures. The hit differs by state, so the dollar figure in your state will not match these three.

What a Rough Road Already Costs Drivers

Federal dollars reach a driver as a smoother road, a repaired bridge or a safety project that was not built. The cost of falling behind shows up in a repair bill.

TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit, puts a number on it in one state. Its March 2026 report found that 51% of major locally and state-maintained roads in Maryland are in poor or mediocre condition, and that driving on rough roads costs the average Maryland driver $856 a year in extra vehicle operating costs. Those costs include accelerated depreciation, added repairs, higher fuel use and faster tire wear. Statewide, 240 of Maryland’s 5,500 bridges, or 4%, are rated poor. Maryland is one state, and its figures are an example, not a national average.

Prices work against the budget. Road building costs more every year. The Federal Highway Administration’s national construction cost index climbed 47 percent between early 2022 and the first half of 2025, TRIP notes. “Maryland’s transportation dollars are already being stretched thin by increased inflation in construction costs, and the state’s existing transportation funding shortfall will make it harder to complete needed improvements,” said Dave Kearby, TRIP’s executive director. “It will be critical that Maryland adequately invest in its transportation network in order to provide a system that is smooth, safe and efficient.” Pew points to a study that put the lost buying power of federal highway dollars at $21.5 billion between late 2020 and 2022. CRS finds that, adjusted for inflation, annual highway funding in fiscal 2025 bought less than funding did in fiscal 2005.

The long-run gap is larger. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimated in 2024, in a figure Pew cites, that even keeping IIJA spending flat through 2033 leaves needs outrunning investment by $1.2 trillion. Slip back to 2019 levels and the shortfall grows to $1.8 trillion, and state and local governments carry more of it. Pew’s conclusion for states: raise new revenue and spend more of their own money to keep the worst bridges safe. That points to state fee and tax increases, such as the six states that raised gas taxes, and to the fuel tax revenue that feeds the Highway Trust Fund. CRS projects that the fund’s highway account balance will approach zero in fiscal 2028 if current revenue and spending trends continue, and that the Federal Highway Administration could then slow payments to states for completed work.

What Congress Can Do From Nov. 9

Lawmakers have two paths and five legislative weeks before Dec. 11. Nobody can say how much Congress will finish in that window, and a possible Democratic takeover of the House, and perhaps the Senate, in the next Congress hangs over the talks.

The first path is a full reauthorization. The House bill is the BUILD America 250 Act, short for Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-Term Development for America’s 250th, and it cleared committee in May 2026, CRS finds. Over five fiscal years it would average $75 billion a year in Highway Trust Fund contract authority, plus $3 billion a year in general fund money that still needs an appropriation. It provides no advance appropriations. It would discontinue the Bridge Formula Program and the electric vehicle program and replace the bridge money with a new formula program paid from the Highway Trust Fund. CRS calculates that it would lift assured annual highway funding about 7% above the IIJA. The Senate has not taken it up, and Cantwell has taken no public position on the bill.

The second path is another short-term extension. The Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, counts around 30 extensions dating back to 1997, which push the deadline out by anywhere from a couple of days to a full year. A second extension that again omits the advance appropriations would leave the lapse in place.

A missed deadline carries its own cost. The Union of Concerned Scientists points to February 2010, when a filibuster by Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky let transportation funding lapse for five days. More than 2,000 federal transportation workers went on furlough and 41 highway projects stalled in 17 states.

Pew expects lawmakers to preserve core highway funding and calls the future of many discretionary grants unclear, especially those for resilience, modernization and bridge upgrades. It names the PROTECT Program, which has supported $2.3 billion in resilience projects against flooding and storm surge, as one that current federal proposals would partly eliminate.

The trucking industry wants the uncertainty to end. Henry Hanscom, chief advocacy and public affairs officer for the American Trucking Associations, said in September: “America’s economy depends on a safe and reliable transportation network, and that requires consistent, long-term investment. The last thing we need is uncertainty that delays critical projects or puts infrastructure funding at risk. The cost of inaction is already beginning to mount. Congress has made real progress on a bipartisan highway bill, and we encourage lawmakers to keep that momentum going and get it across the finish line.”

What You Can Do Now

Four steps put you ahead of the news.

• Ask your state department of transportation or county road department which planned bridge, safety or resurfacing projects near you use federal money, and whether any depends on the Bridge Formula Program or a competitive grant.
• Report potholes and damaged bridges to the local agency that owns the road. A documented repair backlog is the case your county or state makes when it competes for federal dollars.
• Contact your two U.S. senators and your House member before Dec. 11. NACo has asked county leaders to do the same, and a message from a driver names a road they use.
• Watch your state budget. Pew says states without the expanded federal support will need to raise revenue or spend more of their own money on bridges.

The next date to circle is Dec. 11. Either Congress passes a multiyear bill, passes a second extension or lets the stopgap expire, and each outcome lands first on the same place: the project list at your state transportation department.

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Sources

• Pew Charitable Trusts via Governing: States Face a Road Funding Cliff as Federal Infrastructure Law Expires
• Congressional Research Service: Surface Transportation Reauthorization (R48845)
• Transport Topics: Trucking awaits Congress’ next move on highway funds
• National Association of Counties: Federal funding extension creates transportation funding cliff for counties

Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar