It is the end of one era, and the beginning of a new one. The time of the Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act (IIJA) is now officially over, as the Transportation And Infrastructure Committee (T&I) finally released the text of its new surface transportation bill, currently referred to as BUILD America 250, celebrating the two-hundred fiftieth anniversary of America’s founding. IIJA’s wind-down is set to take place on September 30, 2026, and, with Congressional mid-term campaigns kicking into high-gear soon, the industry is anxious-but-hopeful for a new bipartisan deal.
One thing that seems apparent about the text of Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) and Ranking Member Rick Larsen’s (D-WA) new bill: they aim to leave their mark on America’s infrastructure future. After more than a year and over 11,000 policy requests, both sides of the political aisle seem to be satisfied with what they’ve produced. That news bodes well as the bill’s next steps will require expanded cooperation from the right and the left.
For asphalt and road building contractors, however, this phase of the process is filled with a lot more rhetoric and fanfare than with real substance. One thing to note, right out of the gate, is that BUILD is structured in a completely different, but more traditional, way than the IIJA. Both the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) confirm the bill authorizes ~$580 billion over the next five years, FY2027 to FY2031, but no top-line number was officially stated.
While it does eliminate some programs created by IIJA, it actually expands on others, and does include the first new revenue streams for the in-crisis Highway Trust Fund (HTF) in more than three decades. A lot of things can change with a bill from here to the point it finally gets passed, and, with that in mind, this is meant to give brief overview and comparison of what BUILD currently promises versus where IIJA left off.
The Single Biggest Change
The IIJA was a hybrid instrument, and an expensive one. It carried a total price tag of $1.2 trillion, of which $550 billion represented new spending above the baseline that Congress had planned. Roughly half of that new spending flowed to surface transportation through the standard Highway Trust Fund contract authority. The other half came through Division J, a separate division of the law that delivered General Fund advance appropriations across multiple federal agencies.
BUILD America 250 does not work that way. It is a much more traditional reauthorization. It authorizes funding from the HTF over the next five years, but it does not bundle with it supplemental General Fund appropriations.
The transportation policy team at Holland & Knight summarized the bill’s funding architecture in this way: of the roughly $580 billion in total authorization, $474.4 billion will come through HTF contract authority, while roughly $106 billion will be subject to annual appropriations because, unlike the IIJA, the bill did not include General Fund advance appropriations.
This is a return to the status quo. Any monies subject to annual appropriations has to clear the normal appropriations process every fiscal year. This means that the $106 billion could be reduced, delayed, or, worst case scenario, eliminated entirely. With that in mind, the true foundational project pipeline figure is the $474.4 billion.
NAPA President and CEO Audrey Copeland framed it in industry terms, shortly after the bill dropped earlier this week:
The BUILD America 250 Act is a major step forward for our nation and the asphalt pavement industry. The $580 billion primarily dedicated to core surface transportation is a landmark investment for the American people who rely on safe, reliable roads every day. This bill, with its enhanced work zone safety protections, is equally historic for the American workers who build our roads.
BUILD’s Potential Legacy
The single largest area of expansion in the BUILD Act is in the area of bridges, and most of the political messaging revolved around this fact. Graves repeatedly cited a $50 billion-plus investment into our nation’s bridges as the largest in American history. All-in-all, it supersedes the IIJA by ~$16 billion over the same number of years.
Counties gained some specific wins within the new formula structure. The 15% set-aside for off-system bridges that began under the IIJA is now 20% under BUILD, and the bill requires an additional 25-percent set-aside for locally owned bridges. For paving contractors who worked the small-bridge and approach-work side of the business, particularly in rural and county-road markets, the formula increase translates directly into more lettings.
What Got Cut And What Stayed The Same
The political DNA of BUILD America 250 came through most clearly in the programs the bill eliminated, retained, and/or created. The BUILD America 250 Act ends two formula programs that were stood up in the IIJA: the Carbon Reduction Program (CRP) and the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) program.
Eliminated or wound down from IIJA in BA250:
- Carbon Reduction Program (CRP) — $6.4B over five years in IIJA, eliminated
- PROTECT formula program — folded into discretionary grants only ($500M/yr); the formula apportionment ends
- Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (NEVI-adjacent discretionary) — eliminated
- Neighborhood Access and Equity grant program — terminated by Section 1324
- Reconnecting Communities pilot — sunset
- Environmental Review Implementation Funds — terminated by Section 1205
Preserved or expanded from IIJA in BA250:
- National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) — preserved and grown
- Surface Transportation Block Grant (STBG) — preserved and grown
- Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) — preserved
- CMAQ — preserved
- National Highway Freight Program — preserved and re-titled "National highway freight and high priority corridor program"
- Bridge investment — expanded (per detail above)
- TIFIA — held flat at $250M/year (same as IIJA)
- Tribal transportation programs — grown (from $578M/yr to $643M/yr starting FY27)
- Safe Streets and Roads for All — preserved with ramp-up to $1B/yr by FY31
New under BA250:
- Surface Transportation Accelerator Grant Program — $2.4B/year (replaces the IIJA Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program in roughly the same niche)
- Federal motor vehicle EV/plug-in registration fees ($130/$35) — the first new HTF revenue stream in nearly three decades.
- Federal framework for autonomous commercial motor vehicles (Subtitle V-E)
- Bridge Completion Program ($2B/year, General Fund)
What’s important to understand about that last new provision is this: it is significant, but it isn’t enough. We’ve been covering the HTF crisis for the greater part of two years, most recently in reaction to the ENO Center for Transportation’s HTF insolvency report. As noted in that report, these new fees tied to EVs and hybrids do not close the HTF funding gap. Not even close. It will bring in single-digit billions per year in new revenue, which is great, but it does not erase the decades of shortfall. More will have to be done to save the HTF.
NAPA Vice President of Government Affairs Nile Elam called out the revenue piece specifically:
The BUILD America 250 Act, with a $580 billion topline infrastructure investment and an array of meaningful policy reforms, reflects the deeply thoughtful work of House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves, Ranking Member Rick Larsen, their staffs, and the Committee members who worked tirelessly to introduce this bipartisan package. From protections for roadway workers to the first new Highway Trust Fund revenue stream in decades, this bill reflects the comprehensive, forward-thinking approach our infrastructure demands.
Giving It The Grade
Both the IIJA and BUILD look rather small in comparison, however, to what the larger engineering community estimates is really needed to modernize our infrastructure.
The ASCE released its 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure on March 25, 2025, and awarded the country its highest overall grade since 1998: a “C” which was up from a “C-“ in 2021. These gains were directly attributed by ASCE to the IIJA investments, but the picture doesn’t pull any punches either. The ASCE companion study called, “Bridging the Gap,” estimated that surface transportation needs from 2024-2033 at roughly $3.5 trillion, of which $2.2 trillion was designated as specifically for the roadway system. ASCE concluded that even at IIJA levels of spending, there persists a gap of $684 billion annually in proper roadway funding over ten years.
The Federal Highway Administration's own assessments, including its most recent Conditions and Performance report, indicated that fully addressing highway capital investment needs would require average annual investments of $151 billion across all levels of government, with $87 billion of that directed toward system rehabilitation alone.
BUILD America 250 authorizes roughly $60 billion per year in core Federal-aid highway program funding by the FY2031 end of its window. The bill did clear the threshold for routine federal investment in surface transportation, but it did not close the backlog. Translation: it treads water, but it isn’t out of the deep-end. ASCE's 2025 report concluded that the overall national infrastructure investment gap actually widened over the previous four years, growing from $2.59 trillion in 2021 to $3.7 trillion in 2025.
What Happens Next?
The T&I Committee scheduled markup for May 21, four days after the bill's release. The Senate, as of the bill's introduction, has not released a companion measure. The committees of Senate jurisdiction — Environment and Public Works, Banking, Commerce, and Finance — were each working on their own pieces of the eventual Senate package, and bicameral negotiations have not yet begun in earnest.
Current surface transportation authorization will expire on September 30, 2026. Historically, almost one-third of the time since 1991, congress has had to enact short-term extensions of expired surface transportation laws to keep things moving. The last two reauthorization bills both required multiple extensions before passage. A near-term extension of existing authorities is the most likely scenario if negotiations extended into the fall.
NAPA's posture was to push for speed. Both Copeland and Elam closed their statements with explicit calls to move the bill quickly, with Copeland writing that NAPA urged Congress to pass the bill swiftly so President Trump could sign it into law, and Elam noting that with less than five months until current programs expired, the package and its Senate companion had to keep moving.
For contractors, the practical takeaway sits at three layers. The bill, if enacted as introduced, delivers approximately $4 billion more per year in core highway formula funding than the IIJA. The bill's bridge program represents the largest formula-driven federal bridge investment in American history. And the bill's structure, with $106 billion subject to annual appropriations and no General Fund advance appropriation safety net, means that the political fight over the federal infrastructure commitment does not end after its’ passage.
