The U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has advanced the BUILD America 250 Act, a five-year, $580 billion surface transportation bill that would establish the first federal regulatory framework for autonomous commercial motor vehicles operating in interstate commerce. The committee approved the measure (H.R. 8870) by a bipartisan 62-2 vote last month. According to a Holland & Knight analysis of the legislation, the framework marks a shift away from the current patchwork of state-by-state rules toward a cohesive national approach to deploying and operating autonomous commercial motor vehicles, or CMV AVs. The bill’s autonomous vehicle provisions mirror elements of the SELF DRIVE Act, the leading AV bill in the current Congress, while addressing operational issues unique to commercial trucking.
Highlights
- The Transportation Department would be directed to develop a national performance-based safety standard within two years, requiring manufacturers to demonstrate through a documented “safety case” that a CMV AV performs at least as safely as a human-driven vehicle.
- A human operator must be physically present in an ADS-equipped CMV carrying placarded hazardous materials or primarily children, such as a school bus, while Level 3 ADS-equipped CMVs require a human fallback driver in the driver’s seat.
- Remote and fallback drivers must be licensed to operate CMVs and physically located in the United States, with any time spent monitoring an ADS-equipped CMV counted as driving time under hours-of-service rules.
- The committee approved H.R. 8870 by a 62-2 bipartisan vote; the bill also permits cab-mounted warning beacons and exempts ADS equipment from statutory CMV width limits.
What the BUILD America 250 Act Covers
The bipartisan reauthorization bill funds roads, bridges, transit, rail, and highway safety, and for the first time would create a federal framework governing ADS-equipped commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce. The autonomous vehicle provisions sit in Subtitle E of the bill’s Motor Carriers title, titled “Safe Integration of Autonomous Commercial Vehicles.”
The legislation reflects a divided regulatory structure. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holds jurisdiction over commercial vehicle operations, which are implemented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), while vehicle design and safety standards fall to the Energy and Commerce Committee and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The Energy and Commerce Committee has passed part of its surface reauthorization title, including the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026 (H.R. 7389), but did not include major AV provisions.
A New Federal Standard for Autonomous Trucks
The framework creates statutory definitions for terms including “automated driving system” (ADS) and ties other key terms to the Society of Automotive Engineers’ recommended practice J3016. At its core, the subtitle directs the Transportation Department to develop a national performance-based safety standard within two years. Manufacturers would have to demonstrate, through a documented safety case, that a CMV AV performs at least as safely as a human-driven vehicle, with detailed support for the system’s hardware, software, and operational capabilities. The bill also directs the department to formalize the AV incident reporting currently required under NHTSA’s Third Amended Standing General Order 2021-01.
Which Autonomous Trucks Still Require a Human?
The framework sets specific human-presence rules tied to the type of operation:
- Placarded hazardous materials or primarily children (such as a school bus): a human operator must be physically present onboard.
- Level 3 ADS-equipped CMVs: a human fallback driver must occupy the driver’s seat.
- Remote and fallback drivers: any remote assistant, DDT fallback-ready user, or remote driver must be properly qualified and licensed to operate CMVs and physically located in the United States, along with driverless-operations dispatchers. Monitoring time counts as driving time for hours-of-service purposes.
Rulemaking Committee and CMV Standards
The bill establishes a cross-stakeholder rulemaking committee to recommend additional standards to the Transportation Department, drawing representatives from labor, industry, law enforcement, safety advocates, insurers, and researchers. Topics that may lead to rulemaking include vehicle inspection and safety-fitness standards tailored to ADS-equipped CMVs, workforce qualifications and training, limits on the number of CMV AVs a single remote or fallback human can oversee, data collection and recordkeeping standards, and updates to FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, and Accountability program and hours-of-service rules.
The legislation preserves existing requirements rather than waiving them. It does not allow the department to exempt ADS-equipped CMVs from attendance, surveillance, or inspection requirements, nor to exempt remote or fallback drivers from commercial driver standards. It also clarifies that existing federal preemption of state commercial-vehicle safety laws extends to ADS-equipped CMV safety, and it directs the department to display ADS-specific safety violations in FMCSA’s National Consumer Complaint Database.
Additional Provisions
Beyond the core framework, the bill creates a workforce development grant program to train professional drivers, mechanics, and other workers to operate and maintain ADS-equipped CMVs. It permits cab-mounted warning beacons as warning devices without mandating them, and allows ADS technology and equipment to exceed statutory CMV width limits. The bill’s separate Innovation title adds provisions barring the Transportation Department and federal funding recipients from procuring LiDAR technologies from countries of concern, and commissions studies on AV accessibility, cybersecurity and physical risks, and the adequacy of current ADS incident-reporting requirements.
What Comes Next
The full House could take up the BUILD America 250 Act this summer, paired with the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act and other committee text. The Energy and Commerce Committee has not reached bipartisan consensus on the SELF DRIVE Act, though its leadership has signaled it will keep working to fold the bill into the broader reauthorization package. The Senate Commerce Committee is reportedly developing comprehensive AV legislation covering both commercial and passenger vehicles, but it remains unclear whether that measure would diverge from the House version or when it might advance, given the coming midterm elections.
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