Let’s talk about the roads you drove today, because the law that pays for them expires September 30, and the fight over what replaces it decides your commute, your prices, and your safety.
Start with the deadline. The 2021 infrastructure law funds highways, bridges, and transit in all 50 states. It runs out September 30, 2026. The House committee passed a replacement in May on a 62 to 2 vote, which is about as bipartisan as anything gets anymore. But the Senate hasn’t even written its bill yet. So here’s what’ll probably happen: Congress passes a short-term patch to keep the money flowing, and the real fight – who pays, what survives – lands in the next Congress. Whoever wins this seat votes on that bill.
So here’s what I’d fight for, in the order it hits your life.
Your safety first.
There’s something you’ve seen a hundred times on I-40 and never thought twice about – a semi parked on a dark shoulder. Here’s why it’s there. Federal law caps truckers at 11 hours of driving a day. Good rule – tired drivers kill people. But there’s only one truck parking spot in America for every 11 trucks. So when the clock runs out and every lot is full, the driver has to pick: keep driving exhausted, or park on your off-ramp. Near St. Louis, a bus hit three rigs parked on a shoulder because the rest stop was full. Three people died. Researchers found truck crashes go up the farther a driver is from a place to rest.
The fix is already written.
The Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act would build free public truck parking using highway money that already exists instead of creating a brand-new program. Rural corridors first. Truckers want it, truck stop owners want it, law enforcement wants it. It has died in Congress anyway, over and over since 2020, because nobody with power wants credit for parking lots. A representative from the freight capital of America should carry that bill into the highway fight and not shut up about it.
Your prices second.
Trucks move more than 70% of this country’s freight, and a huge share rolls through this district – the river, the rail yards, the airport, and I-40 all cross in Memphis. Remember 2021, when they found a crack in the I-40 bridge and shut it down? Freight backed up across the whole region overnight.
That scare is why we’re finally replacing the 1949 I-55 bridge, the oldest bridge on the entire interstate system. Steve Cohen got the money announced two years ago. Here’s what most people don’t know – not one shovel has hit the ground. Design finishes at the end of this year. Construction starts in 2027, under the next highway law, voted on by the next Congress. Announced money isn’t spent money. If the next bill stalls or gets gutted, projects like that bridge are exactly what sits in limbo.
Third, your commute.
Seventeen counties of rural highways and small bridges run through this district, and the state’s own construction reports tell the story. SR-180 has been closed to through traffic since the April 2025 floods – over a year now. SR-19 in Lauderdale County is closed from a slide. A bridge on SR-211 just south of Dyersburg has been stuck in “inspection” lane closures since 2024. Obion County counted about $1 million in flood damage to its roads. The money to fix all of it comes out of the same federal pot that expires in September. City and country, same fight.
Now the honest part. The fund behind all of this is going broke. The government’s own budget office says it runs out of money by 2028. I’ve already written about why – the gas tax that feeds it hasn’t moved since 1993, and nobody in either party has had the guts to deal with it.
There are real ways to fix it, and you should know what they are.
Raise the gas tax – even 15 cents would keep the fund alive into the 2030s.
Or charge drivers by the mile instead of by the gallon. Right now you pay for roads at the pump – the tax is baked into the price of gas. A mileage fee flips that: your odometer gets read once a year at registration, and you pay a small amount for every mile you drove. Doesn’t matter what powers the car – gas, hybrid, electric, everybody pays for the roads they actually use. 37 states are studying or testing it.
Or charge electric cars a flat yearly fee, since they use the roads but never buy gas. That last one is the only fix in the House bill right now, and it’s the smallest of the three – electric and plug-in hybrid cars are about 2% of the vehicles on the road, and the fund spends way more than it takes in. Which of these actually happens depends on who controls the next Congress.
I won’t pretend the next highway bill is free. Somebody has to level with you about the price tag, and the people writing the current bill aren’t doing it.
One House member gets one vote on the biggest infrastructure bill of the decade. Mine goes to a district that lives on freight and farm roads – safe places for drivers to sleep, bridges that actually get built, and the truth about what it costs.
Sources
- House T&I Committee, Surface Transportation Reauthorization (BUILD America 250 Act, 62-2 vote)
- Brookings, The BUILD America 250 Act: What Congress gets right and wrong
- Congressional Research Service, Surface Transportation Reauthorization (R48881)
- Bipartisan Policy Center, Options to Stabilize the Highway Trust Fund
- Union of Concerned Scientists, EVs and the Highway Trust Fund
- TDOT, West Tennessee Construction Report (SR-180, SR-19 closures)