Issue Brief | More Roads but Fewer Options

On May 22, 2026, the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved “The BUILD America 250 Act” (BA250), which proposes over 500 billion dollars in funding for dozens of federal surface transportation programs, for FY2027 through 2031. Congress must pass a replacement — or an extension — for the current surface transportation funding law before it expires on September 30, 2026. 

To better understand potential real-world implications from the proposed Reauthorization bill, the Georgetown Climate Center estimated how BA250 could affect climate pollution, electric vehicle (EV) deployment, traffic safety and household costs for U.S. residents. Results are published in a new GCC Issue Brief: More Roads but Fewer Options.

“The challenge for every transportation agency, at the federal, state and local level, is balancing priorities to meet as many needs as possible on a limited budget of public dollars,” writes James Bradbury, GCC Director of Research and Policy Analysis, and author of More Roads but Fewer Options. “While funding decisions reflect that balance of priorities, the consequences of those funding decisions are not always clear to legislators or transportation planners.”

GCC’s analysis finds that BA250 could increase headwinds for the EV market. The bill’s proposed annual registration fees are expected to reduce the number of EV sales by at least tens of thousands — and potentially hundreds of thousands — of vehicles each year. 

GCC also finds that, if past investment patterns continue, BA250 could make transportation more expensive, less safe and more polluting. This could mean: more investments in expanding roadways, in far greater proportion to investments in other transportation modes (e.g., rail, bus, bike and pedestrian). This could result in over a thousand more traffic fatalities each year, hundreds of additional dollars in annual transportation costs for every US household, and tens of millions of additional tons of climate pollution over the next decade (equivalent to emissions from 4 to 6 coal-fired power plants). 

Read the full Issue Brief here

Learn more about TEA-CART, the tool that was used for this analysis, here