The BUILD America 250 Act, advanced by the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, would eliminate or weaken many programs that help lower transportation costs, improve public health, and reduce pollution. In doing so, it represents a significant shift from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) of 2021, which established dedicated programs to modernize the transportation system through investments that prioritized pollution reduction and freight efficiency.
Although the surface transportation reauthorization sets federal priorities for the next five years, it has effects on the transportation system that extend beyond the funding period. Investing less in freight efficiency today means higher shipping costs and consumer prices over the long term. To rein in costs, ACEEE recommends that Congress enact a surface transportation bill that prioritizes three key strategies to improve freight efficiency: building key freight charging corridors, improving the efficiency of ports and freight infrastructure, and strengthening state and local capacity to deliver transportation projects. Together, these would help lower transportation costs for families and businesses, strengthen supply chains, and ensure taxpayer dollars are invested efficiently.
Congress has an opportunity to address many of the BUILD America 250 Act’s shortcomings on freight efficiency while preserving and strengthening its more promising project delivery provisions. It can do so by doing the following:
- Restore and reauthorize key programs that improve freight efficiency and reduce transportation costs, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (NEVI), the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Program (CFI), the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP), the Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities program, and the Carbon Reduction Program.
- Update NEVI and CFI eligibility to support emerging freight charging solutions, including megawatt charging systems and shared charging hubs that can serve multiple fleets, reduce infrastructure costs, and improve charger utilization.
- Allow truck parking grant recipients of the proposed $750 million, 5-year truck parking grant program to incorporate truck charging infrastructure and future electrification planning into eligible projects. Enabling charging-ready design, electrical upgrades, and truck charging installations alongside new parking investments would help future-proof federally funded facilities, reduce the need for costly retrofits, and ensure that truck parking infrastructure can support both current freight needs and emerging vehicle technologies.
- Support research, demonstration, and pilot projects for emerging technologies such as battery energy storage and digital freight systems. These technologies can improve port productivity, reduce operating costs, and strengthen U.S. supply chains.
- Build on the project delivery provisions by expanding support for technical assistance and capacity building, and by better utilizing the Build America Bureau. Experience from BIL implementation demonstrated that technical assistance is often one of the most cost-effective federal investments; it helps states, local governments, ports, transit agencies, and rural communities move projects from concept to construction more quickly while also reducing administrative burdens and project delays.
- Strengthen investment certainty by protecting awarded funds from administrative reversal. To make the investments needed to create jobs and support a stronger economy, businesses and state and local governments need long-term certainty on federal funding. However, federal transportation outlays and guidance for programs have shifted considerably under the current administration, and this has upended certainty around spending and left many investments in limbo. The result is slower innovation, reduced competitiveness, and higher transportation costs for businesses and consumers.
Transportation efficiency is economic policy. Freight demand is expected to continue growing, and households and businesses remain vulnerable to volatile fuel prices and rising transportation costs. Investments that improve freight movement, modernize ports, reduce congestion, and deploy cost-saving technologies help lower the cost of moving goods throughout the economy. In contrast, reducing support for these investments risks higher freight costs, weaker supply chains, and greater long-term infrastructure needs.
The House bill reduces support for less expensive and less polluting freight corridors
Freight transportation is the backbone of the U.S. economy. How efficiently we move goods from factories and warehouses to stores, businesses, and consumers directly affects U.S. economic competitiveness, consumer prices, and air quality. Rising freight demand is also stressing the system. Between 2013 and 2023, truck vehicle miles increased by over 25%. The recently released National Freight Strategic Plan shows that freight volumes are large and growing and estimates 23% growth in freight tonnage over the next 20 years.
Diesel costs today are roughly 2.5 times higher than they were in 2019. Higher fuel prices impact the costs of goods on shelves. Investments that improve freight efficiency and reduce fuel consumption help lower transportation costs while making the freight system more resilient to future fuel price volatility.
Electric vehicles: It is important that surface transportation reauthorization legislation focus on building the infrastructure needed for a more efficient freight system to reduce freight costs and ultimately the price of consumer goods. This includes reauthorizing NEVI and CFI, maintaining robust funding levels, and establishing dedicated funding for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle charging. Instead, BUILD America 250 moves in the opposite direction. The legislation provides little support for freight electrification. At the same time, federal actions and subsequent court cases, freezes, recissions, and legal reversals over the past year have put both the $2.5 billion CFI grant program and the $5 billion NEVI formula program authorized under BIL into question. Additionally, a Department of Transportation proposal to increase the required domestic content of electric vehicle charging equipment up to 100%—which received nearly 300 comments and nearly unanimous disapproval—would undermine the phased domestic sourcing approach that manufacturers have been using to build U.S.-based supply chains. Because few, if any, charging products currently meet a 100% domestic-content threshold, the proposal would effectively halt the disbursement of federal charging funds until compliant products become available. This would delay projects, increase costs, and create significant uncertainty for manufacturers, charging providers, states, and private investors.
Port efficiency: The bill also falls short on port efficiency. Its repeal of the Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities program would roll back efforts to modernize port operations by replacing diesel-powered trucks with cleaner vehicles and improving terminal facilities to reduce congestion and truck idling at ports. Many affected ports are in communities with poor air quality and federal air quality nonattainment areas. Additionally, its repeal of the Carbon Reduction Program would mean losing out on $6 billion in funding for projects that increase the efficiency of the transportation system, including the freight system, through projects such as traffic management systems, cleaner trucks, improved port operations, and other investments in sustainable transportation. Finally, PIDP is left out of the reauthorization entirely; this will likely reduce the allocated annual funds after BIL had significantly bolstered this program with $2.25 billion over 5 years, which was double the annual allocations of the previous years.
Digital infrastructure: The bill contains several positive freight provisions. Most notably, it recognizes the growing role of digital infrastructure, or data and communication systems, in improving freight performance. In expanding eligibility for digital infrastructure projects under programs such as the Highway Safety Improvement Program and the National Highway Freight and High Priority Corridor Program, it supports technologies that improve traffic flow, reduce delays, and increase system efficiency. The bill also codifies the Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW) program, a voluntary public-private data-sharing initiative that emerged from pandemic-era supply chain disruptions and provides valuable visibility into freight system performance.
Truck parking: The bill’s creation of a dedicated $750 million, 5-year truck parking grant program addresses a longstanding shortage of safe truck parking and responds to an important safety challenge facing the freight industry. However, the legislation simultaneously prohibits truck charging infrastructure from being incorporated into these facilities, even during development and planning activities. As a result, federally funded truck parking facilities risk becoming outdated before they are fully built and could need costly retrofits in the future.
Project delivery: Project delivery is critical to freight investments and the transportation system more broadly. Transportation projects only deliver benefits when they move from planning to construction efficiently and without excessive delays or cost overruns. ACEEE’s experience supporting communities through the Thriving Communities Program demonstrated that technical assistance and capacity-building support can significantly improve project outcomes by helping local governments navigate planning, funding, stakeholder engagement, and implementation challenges. Projects developed with this support are often better aligned with community needs and more likely to advance successfully. The House version of the bill falls well short of BIL’s commitment to technical assistance and capacity building, even though these investments often generate outsized returns by helping communities deliver projects faster, more effectively, and at lower cost. Congress should restore and expand support for project delivery assistance, including through greater use of the Build America Bureau, which helps state and local governments access financing, technical assistance, and project development support for complex transportation projects. Strengthening the Bureau’s capacity and reducing barriers to its technical assistance and financing programs can help communities deliver projects more efficiently, mitigate delivery risks, and maximize the value of federal infrastructure investments.
Restoring freight efficiency programs would cut costs and strengthen the economy
The BUILD America 250 Act contains a handful of useful provisions that improve freight data, digital infrastructure, and truck parking. But the bill falls far short in supporting freight electrification, repeals programs that improve freight efficiency and port productivity, and creates uncertainty around future transportation investments—all of which will increase shipping costs and consumer prices. As freight demand continues to grow, Congress should enact a bill that prioritizes investments that lower freight costs, strengthen supply chain resilience, reduce exposure to diesel price volatility, and prepare the nation’s freight system for the next generation of transportation technologies.
A successful reauthorization should pair faster project delivery with strategic investments that improve the performance of the transportation system. By restoring support for freight efficiency, port modernization, vehicle electrification, and project delivery capacity, Congress can create a transportation system that is more affordable, more resilient, and better positioned to support U.S. economic competitiveness over the coming decades. At a time when families, businesses, and communities are focused on affordability, transportation policy should prioritize investments that lower costs—not ones that lock in higher costs for the future.
