Sponsors (2)
The bill expands federal recognition, reporting, and guidance on extreme-heat damage to help speed repairs and guide investments that improve bridge and roadway resilience and safety, but it raises near-term fiscal and administrative costs and creates trade-offs over who bears repair expenses and how limited resilience funds are allocated.
State and local governments and bridge owners can access federal Emergency Relief funds for heat-related bridge damage, enabling faster repairs and quicker reopening of routes after extreme heat events.
State DOTs, transit agencies, Amtrak, and freight rail will have new methods and a required federal report to quantify heat-related damage within one year, giving federal decisionmakers data to better target investments and policies for heat resilience.
Local governments and transportation agencies receive consolidated best practices to design and maintain heat-resilient highways and bridges, which should reduce heat-related pavement/structure failures and improve passenger and freight safety.
Taxpayers, local governments, and bridge owners may face higher costs from expanded Emergency Relief eligibility and potential costly retrofits or implementation of new heat-resilience standards.
Some heat-driven, gradual deterioration could be excluded from emergency relief (if judged 'substantially caused' by heat), leaving state and local owners — and ultimately local taxpayers or bondholders — responsible for expensive repairs or replacements.
Broadening qualifying events and vague language may divert limited federal resilience dollars toward heat-related projects, reducing funding available for other disaster types or local priorities.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Modifies Emergency Relief law to recognize extreme heat impacts on roads/bridges, excludes some heat-caused bridge deterioration from a subsection, and requires a TRB study plus DOT best-practice guidance within 1 year.
Amends the federal Emergency Relief statute to recognize and address extreme heat as a distinct threat to highways and bridges, limits Emergency Relief eligibility for bridges whose deterioration was substantially caused by extreme heat exposure, and requires the Secretary of Transportation to commission a one-year Transportation Research Board study and to issue best-practice guidance for protecting highways and bridges from extreme heat. The bill directs study, stakeholder consultation, and two public reports to help states, transit providers, rail systems, and others better detect, track, and respond to heat-related damage.
Official title: To amend title 23, United States Code, to provide for emergency relief for repair or reconstruction of infrastructure damaged by extreme heat, and for other purposes.
Introduced December 12, 2025 by Greg Stanton · Last progress December 12, 2025