19. Department of Transportation · Notable · Needs Congress
End Highway Trust Fund transfers that prop up mass transit
Printed page 636 19. Department of Transportation
“It is also vital to move away from using the Highway Trust Fund to prop up mass transit. The fund was driven into insolvency (and repeated bailouts) through decades of transfers to transit without any increase in transit usage to show for it.”
What has happened
- Not started
Congress moved the other way. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 keeps the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund in place and funds transit from it, writes the Federal-aid highway obligation limitation so that it applies only to contract authority from the Highway Trust Fund other than the Mass Transit Account, and in section 163 bars any funds in this or any other Act from being used to adjust apportionments or withhold funds from apportionments under 26 U.S.C. 9503(e)(4), the Mass Transit Account provision. No transfer to transit was ended and none was proposed by the administration.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Lead, not Evidence for a rung: S. 3786, the Balance the Highway Trust Fund Act (Sen. Lee, introduced 2026-02-05, referred to Environment and Public Works) at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s3786is/html/BILLS-119s3786is.htm . Read in full: it caps Federal-aid highway obligations at net highway receipts. It limits highway spending, not transit transfers, and introduction is not started under playbook section 3b in any case.
- The FY2027 Budget’s DOT chapter proposes no change to Highway Trust Fund transfers.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- Highway Trust Fund transfers to mass transit
- ID
- 1748