Overview
- The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 62–2 to approve the BUILD America 250 Act, which directs the Department of Transportation to create federal safety standards and a manufacturer certification process for self-driving commercial trucks.
- The bill would require all remote assistants, dispatchers, and remote drivers to be physically located in the United States or its territories to address concerns about offshore monitoring.
- The legislation authorizes $27.5 million for fiscal year 2027 to fund workforce development grants aimed at retraining truck drivers and training technicians to work with automated driving systems.
- Industry executives praised the move as a step toward a national framework but the bill does not immediately allow driverless rigs to operate across state lines and still needs passage by the full House and the Senate.
- Labor groups have pushed state-level 'driver-in' mandates to preserve jobs, testing of supervised routes continues in places such as the Dallas–Oklahoma City corridor, and experts say fully driverless interstate trucking is likely still years away.