A tentative bipartisan deal for the massive five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that directs billions in federal dollars to critical U.S. infrastructure projects also includes a provision to establish national regulatory guidelines for autonomous trucks.
The agreement — dubbed the Build America 250 Act — announced Sunday by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Sam Graves, Rep. of Missouri, and the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington state, also “provides the first ever autonomous commercial motor vehicle framework.”
While the legislation still must clear other procedural steps, lawmakers said the goal is to send the bill from Congress to the president’s desk before the current surface transportation authorization expires on Sept. 30. It was introduced to the House of Representatives on Tuesday and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is expected to begin its mark up session on the legislation Thursday.
Both Graves and Larsen acknowledged the agreement, which will provide funding for nationwide road, highway and rail projects, from FY 2027 through FY 2031, took more than 18 months to sort through until compromises were reached.
Industry would set terms of its safety case
The bill as currently drafted features a section, “Safe Integration of Autonomous Commercial Motor Vehicles,” and calls for new regulations within six month or two years, covering issues such as:
- The Transportation secretary issuing regulations of a safety standard for interstate commerce of AVs
- Requiring an autonomous manufacturer to establish and maintain a safety standard that includes a manufacturer’s own safety case. The safety case “provides claims, supported by arguments and evidence” on the technology’s reliability that is at least as safe as a traditional commercial driver
- Creating a transportation rulemaking committee to make recommendations
- Requiring a cybersecurity plan, policy and preventative/response efforts
- Establishing crash reporting requirements
- Setting limits on how many autonomous commercial vehicles a remote assistant or dispatcher can oversee at once
- Providing standards for alerting other road users when an AV goes into a “minimal risk condition”
The bill also mandates a human operator be on board for autonomous or semi-autonomous school buses, placarded hazardous materials and “other operations” as determined by the Transportation secretary.
Despite the proposed safety and regulatory oversight in the legislation, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which has raised safety issues about the technology, noted concerns with the proposed legislation. In a statement, the group said the bill gives “autonomous vehicle manufacturers the ability to self-certify their technology for deployment on public roads,” adding the provision is “very troubling.”
AV stakeholders welcomed the bill
The inclusion for creating a national regulatory framework for autonomous commercial motor vehicles in the bill was welcomed by the technology’s developers and industry advocates.
Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak AI, said in a statement the bill, if approved, “would achieve a significant milestone.” He added, it would lead to the establishment of “a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for autonomous trucks that would bring further regulatory certainty for the autonomous trucking industry.”
Currently, companies including Kodiak AI, operate in an environment where rules for driverless trucks vary across states. Though it hasn’t slowed the company’s deployment efforts across the Southwest, Southeast, and Midwest regions in the U.S.
However, establishment of national rules would replace the patchwork of state regulations, Burnette said, adding the bill would set strong safety standards and give the Department of Transportation “the tools it needs to oversee the scaled rollout of autonomous trucks, while supporting American innovation and investing in the transportation workforce.”
Ariel Wolf, chair of the Venable law firm’s autonomous and connected mobility group, said in an email to Trucking Dive that creating a national framework for autonomous vehicles improves predictability by giving the industry and stakeholders one set of rules to follow. This could accelerate capital investment in the sector, said Wolf, also general counsel of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association.
Wolf noted the autonomous vehicle portion of the bill includes important language that clarifies how trucks comply with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, which sets out a high-bar on safety that can preempt conflicting state laws.
Wolf recognizes the Transportation and Infrastructure committee and other congressional committees will continue to discuss and revise the bill before a final version is pushed through Congress but is optimistic for the industry.
“Having this language built into the text of the broader Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill means that the committee leadership views the framework for ADS-equipped commercial motor vehicles as a key national priority,” Wolf said. “There’s a long way to go but this is a great first step.”
