Sponsors (6)
The bill concentrates federal dollars on bridges—giving states predictable, targeted funding (including for non‑Federal‑aid bridges) but does so by eliminating other climate and resilience programs and locking allocations to a 2024 data snapshot, trading broader environmental and multimodal priorities for focused bridge investment.
State and local governments receive a dedicated federal funding stream (about 5.48% federal share) for a national bridge program to replace, rehabilitate, preserve, protect, and build bridges on Federal‑aid highways.
States can apply program funds to non‑Federal‑aid bridges, enabling support for locally important and rural bridges that typically lack federal funding.
The funding formula weights bridge deck area and poor‑condition deck area (75/25), directing more money toward states with large inventories and targeting additional resources to poor‑condition bridges.
Eliminates the Carbon Reduction and PROTECT programs, reducing dedicated federal support for emissions‑reduction and certain resilience projects.
Redirecting funds into the new national bridge program reduces federal funding available for other priorities (like emissions reduction, resilience, and multimodal projects) that those struck programs previously supported.
Allocations are fixed using the National Bridge Inventory snapshot as of Dec 31, 2024, which may unfairly favor states with larger 2024 inventories and fail to reflect later deterioration or recent improvements.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced February 9, 2026 by Troy E. Nehls · Last progress February 9, 2026
Creates a new federal National Bridge Program to fund replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, protection, and construction of bridges on Federal‑aid highways, replaces two existing programs (carbon reduction and PROTECT subsection (c)), and sets a fixed share of highway formula dollars (5.47660865256628% of amounts remaining after certain distributions) for this new program. It also prescribes an apportionment formula that allocates 75% of those funds by each State’s share of total bridge deck area on Federal‑aid highways and 25% by each State’s share of deck area of bridges in poor condition, using the National Bridge Inventory as of December 31, 2024. Does not create new appropriations, penalties, or reporting deadlines beyond specifying the inventory date; makes conforming statutory changes to remove references to the eliminated programs and to insert the new program into Title 23, U.S. Code.