In late May, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted 62-2 to advance the BUILD America 250 Act, a five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that includes $580 billion in federal infrastructure investment. The bill moved out of committee with the kind of bipartisan support that has become rare in Washington. For the autonomous vehicle industry, the vote sent a signal worth paying attention to.
The BUILD America 250 Act — authored by Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) and Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA) — includes autonomous trucking provisions that represent the most significant action on Capitol Hill for autonomous vehicles in years. For anyone waiting for Washington to provide the regulatory clarity that autonomous trucking companies need to scale, this is a meaningful development. The federal policy framework being assembled reflects a bipartisan consensus that the United States cannot afford to fall behind on this technology, lest strategic competitors like China pass us by.
Much of the autonomous trucking policy in the BUILD America 250 Act is inspired by the AMERICA DRIVES Act from Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA), a champion of innovation and making our nation’s supply chain more resilient for farmers and small businesses.
One of the core pieces of the bill directs the Transportation Department to write new performance standards for autonomous commercial motor vehicles. Right now, companies developing AV trucking technology operate in a regulatory environment largely written for human drivers. There are no national performance standards specifically governing autonomous vehicles. The legislation directs the executive branch to create performance standards just like we have for human-driven vehicles. Whether you’re an autonomous vehicle skeptic or their biggest fan, you should want performance standards on AVs to ensure the vehicles are safely sharing the road with human drivers. For the industry, this is a big step toward establishing a federal policy framework that builds public trust, drives capital investment and hiring, and facilitates commercial operations at scale.
The bill also addresses a vexing challenge for autonomous trucking. A federal regulation written in the 1970s requires a driver to physically exit the cab to place warning triangles on the roadway when a commercial vehicle stops on the side of a road. That regulation was written decades ago and assumes a human is in the driver’s seat. For an autonomous truck with no driver on board, the requirement is unworkable. The Transportation Department recently granted a temporary waiver to allow the industry to use cab-mounted beacons as an alternative. The BUILD act makes the approach permanent, extending the use of these warning beacons to all trucks, whether driven by an autonomous system or a human. It is a commonsense safety improvement that benefits truck drivers who should not have to risk injury by placing warning triangles on the ground as traffic and debris fly by.
This congressional action arrives alongside forward-leaning work by the Transportation Department under Secretary Sean Duffy, including his April 2025 announcement of a new automated vehicle framework. Under Duffy’s leadership, the Transportation Department has executed a series of rulemakings to evolve federal standards for the autonomous era. The executive and legislative branches are moving in the same direction to drive American excellence in autonomous vehicles.
States are already taking action on autonomous vehicle policy, with 26 — representing 58% of the country’s population — authorizing autonomous vehicles on their roads. These states will be well-positioned for the safety and economic gains of autonomous vehicles once the federal government establishes a policy framework that smooths the path for robust interstate commerce.
Autonomous trucks are arriving at a time of great need for our supply chain. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics projects that freight activity in the United States will grow by 50% by 2050. That demand is growing faster than the driver workforce can meet it, and unless the supply side is augmented with autonomous trucks, America’s ranchers, farmers, and employers will suffer with an inadequate supply chain.
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Our organization’s new State of AV report recently announced that AV companies have driven more than 360 million autonomous miles on U.S. public roads — a figure that grows every day and is 2.5 times the number it was a year ago. The commercialization era of autonomous vehicles is upon us. To unlock the true promise of the industry, a federal framework is needed that matches the ambition of the companies and people building it. Congressional action, combined with the Department of Transportation’s active regulatory agenda and a growing coalition of AV-ready states, is assembling that framework.
The BUILD America 250 Act still has a long road to the president’s desk. But an overwhelmingly bipartisan committee vote in a closely divided Congress is a clear signal about where the political center of gravity on autonomous trucking now sits. Companies and investors building the long-term trajectory of autonomous freight should take note. The federal, state, and executive infrastructure this industry needs is taking shape, and it has more political support than the daily noise out of Washington might suggest.
Jeff Farrah is the CEO of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association.