Federal law now includes a clear mandate to test road usage charging at the national level, creating a formal pathway for the United States to explore replacing some or all fuel tax revenue with mileage-based fees. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, signed into law in 2021, contains several provisions aimed at advancing road usage charging, sometimes called RUC or mileage-based user fees.
What the law requires
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law tasks the U.S. Department of Transportation with three main actions on RUC. First, USDOT is required to conduct a national road usage charge pilot, with $10 million authorised per year for fiscal years 2022 through 2026. Second, the department must establish an advisory body, the Federal System Funding Alternative Advisory Board, to guide design and policy recommendations. Third, USDOT is directed to continue and refocus grant funding to help states and local governments test RUC approaches.
The law replaces an earlier competitive grant programme, Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives, with a new Strategic Innovation for Revenue Collection programme. SIRC is authorised at $15 million per year from 2022 to 2026 to support state, local and tribal trials of alternatives to fuel tax funding.
These federal measures are deliberately complementary to the work that many states have already been doing. For several years state transport departments have been running pilots using different technical and administrative models, testing voluntary participation, privacy protections, billing methods, and equity safeguards. The national pilot is intended to build on those lessons and evaluate approaches at scale.
Where implementation stands now
Implementation has been staggered. USDOT and the Federal Highway Administration have moved quickly on many BIL competitive grant programmes and have been distributing funds across a broad range of infrastructure priorities. That workload has meant some RUC-specific elements have progressed more slowly.
As of mid-2023, the SIRC grant programme was expected to be one of the first RUC elements to activate, with a notice of funding opportunity likely to follow. The advisory board has not yet been convened, and USDOT has not begun the national pilot. The advisory board is intended to play a central role, advising USDOT leadership on how to design the pilot and how best to recruit participants across states.
