The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has called the BUILD America 250 Act the “most pro-trucker highway bill in recent memory.” However, that doesn’t mean OOIDA sees no need for improvement.
When the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced its highway bill last month, OOIDA immediately supported the legislation for its provisions to fund truck parking, provide restroom access for truckers and prohibit predatory lease-purchase agreements.
“Whenever there’s a highway bill, it’s such a large piece of policy that there are going to be things you don’t like in it, and we know that going in,” Collin Long, OOIDA’s senior director of government affairs, told the Trucking with OOIDA podcast. “So, it’s just can we make sure that the good outweighs the bad. That’s really our approach every time there’s a highway bill. This one is certainly the good outweighing the bad.”
“The bad” includes provisions to launch a Beyond Compliance program and a pilot program to increase truck weight limits to 91,000 pounds. Additionally, the BUILD America 250 Act would allow autonomous vehicle manufacturers to self-certify.
OOIDA opposed the AV provision, pointing out to lawmakers that the use of self-certification for ELD manufacturers and CDL training schools has been problematic. OOIDA said that leaving driverless trucks unchecked would be “the most disastrous yet.”
The idea behind the Beyond Compliance program is to reward motor carriers that go above and beyond the requirements to ensure safe operation. Essentially, that means boosting safety scores for carriers that add a bunch of “safety gadgets” to the truck. Critics of a Beyond Compliance program view it as being biased toward large fleets and as a pay-to-play system.
The current federal weight limit is 80,000 pounds. OOIDA says increasing size and weight is all cost and no benefit for truckers. The Coalition Against Bigger Trucks released a 2025 study indicating that raising the weight limit to 91,000 pounds would put as many as 82,457 bridges at risk and cost up to $98.6 billion.
Back to the good
When OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh testified to the House and Senate in 2025, he told them they had the opportunity to pass the most pro-trucker highway bill in history and outlined what should and shouldn’t be included. A year later, the House T&I listened to OOIDA more often than not.
Since the BUILD America 250 Act advanced out of committee on May 22, Land Line has published a series of articles looking at most of the trucking-related provisions.
You can find them all below:
Reach out to lawmakers
OOIDA is encouraging truckers to reach out to their lawmakers about the BUILD America 250 Act. By using OOIDA’s Fighting For Truckers website, you can reach your lawmakers and let them know what you like and don’t like about the highway bill. There, you can also encourage lawmakers to get a highway bill passed sooner rather than later.
Although the BUILD America 250 Act passed out of committee, it still needs to win votes in the full House and in the Senate before it can become law.
The current highway bill expires at the end of September, so time is running out. If lawmakers are unable to pass a bill by Sept. 30, they will likely extend the current highway bill. When lawmakers were unable to get a highway bill passed in 2020, they approved a one-year extension. After another brief extension, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was eventually passed in November 2021. LL
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