# BUILD America 250 Act Would Impose $130 Federal Fee on EV Owners to Shore Up Highway Trust Fund **Source:** https://glitchwire.com/news/build-america-250-act-would-impose-130-federal-fee-on-ev-owners-to-shore-up-high/ **Published:** 2026-05-19T14:56:44.509Z **Author:** Policy Desk ยท Glitchwire **Categories:** Policy, Energy ## Summary A bipartisan House bill proposes the first new revenue stream for federal road funding in over 30 years by requiring electric vehicle owners to pay an annual registration fee. ## Article A bipartisan transportation bill released by House lawmakers this week would require electric vehicle owners to pay a $130 annual federal registration fee, with plug-in hybrid owners paying $35. The BUILD America 250 Act, introduced by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) and Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA), marks Congress's first serious attempt in decades to address the structural decay of the Highway Trust Fund. The bill proposes $580 billion in surface transportation spending over five years, with a committee markup planned for May 21, 2026. ## The Trust Fund Problem The Highway Trust Fund has been bleeding money for years. The federal gas tax stands at 18.4 cents per gallon and has not changed since 1993. That revenue funds road maintenance and repairs. But because EVs run on electricity, their owners pay no gas tax and contribute nothing to the fund through fuel purchases. The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that without fundamental changes, the Highway Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2028, with the deficit swelling to nearly $280 billion by 2034. The math is unambiguous. Gas tax receipts are falling as vehicles become more fuel-efficient and more drivers switch to electric. Something has to give. The proposed fee structure is outlined in Section 1129 of the bill. Starting in 2029, the Federal Highway Administration would increase both fees by $5 every two years. The EV fee would be capped at $150, while the plug-in hybrid fee would be capped at $50. States would collect the fees. If a state fails to comply, FHWA would withhold 125% of the amount owed from that state's federal highway apportionment. That enforcement mechanism has teeth. ## The "Fair Share" Argument Proponents frame this as a straightforward equity issue. "The BUILD America 250 Act ensures that electric vehicle owners begin paying their fair share for the use of our roads," Graves said in a statement. The legislation would inject the Highway Trust Fund with its first new revenue stream in more than three decades, according to the committee. EV owners in 41 states already pay annual registration fees at the state level. The House bill would layer a federal fee on top of those existing charges. Some states have already gone much further. Michigan has the highest EV charges in the country after lawmakers hiked fees in 2025. The fees in 2026 are $267 for EVs and $113 for plug-in hybrids. In New Jersey, it's $270 to register an EV, and drivers also need to pay the first four years up front. A federal fee on top of these existing state charges would push total annual EV registration costs well above $400 in some jurisdictions. ## Critics Say the Math Doesn't Add Up Environmental groups have pushed back on the bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and a coalition of other organizations have urged lawmakers to reject the EV fee. The Zero Emission Transportation Association, which counts Tesla among its members, offered a pointed critique. "Drivers of gas-powered vehicles pay approximately $73 to $89 in federal gas tax each year," ZETA Executive Director Albert Gore said. "The proposed fee would charge an unfair premium on EV drivers." The concern is real. "This is particularly concerning as the EV fee will increase to $150 by 2035, nearly double what gas car drivers would pay in a year." A flat annual fee is also blunt: it doesn't distinguish between a driver who logs 30,000 miles annually and someone who barely uses their car. Consumer Reports argues these flat fees are problematic because they don't account for how much a person actually drives. Seniors and people who only drive occasionally only pay $40 to $50 in gas taxes annually. ## Timing Complicates Everything The bill arrives at an awkward moment for the EV market. The $7,500 federal tax credit for new EVs no longer exists. Congress eliminated it as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, 2025. The credit expired for vehicles purchased after September 30, 2025. The $4,000 used EV credit is also gone. Both credits ended at the same time. Senate Democrats, including Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse, have pushed back, arguing that layering new annual fees onto EV ownership could slow adoption at exactly the moment the U.S. is trying to build out a domestic EV industry. Their concern: the fee functions as a penalty on a cleaner technology, and the timing, coming alongside other federal EV incentive rollbacks, compounds the financial pressure on prospective buyers. The user-pays principle underlying this proposal is economically defensible. EVs use roads. Roads cost money. Someone has to pay. But the policy question is whether a flat annual fee is the right mechanism, or whether alternatives like vehicle-miles-traveled charges would more accurately reflect actual road use. ## What Happens Next The bill's authors hope to send it to the president's desk by September 30, when the current version of the funding law expires. The U.S. Senate has not yet put together a proposal. That leaves considerable room for negotiation, amendment, or delay. If the EV fee survives, it would represent a meaningful policy shift. For the first time, the federal government would formally acknowledge that electric vehicles should contribute directly to road infrastructure. Whether that contribution should be $130, or indexed to miles driven, or structured some other way, is now the debate that will play out over the summer as the September deadline approaches. For EV owners already absorbing the loss of federal purchase incentives, the prospect of a new annual charge is one more variable in an increasingly complicated ownership calculus. The bill also includes provisions for [autonomous trucking regulations](/news/nvidias-vera-cpu-marks-a-structural-shift-in-how-ai-thinks-about-hardware/) and a [two-year freeze on federal support for California's high-speed rail project](https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/surface-transportation-bill-would-tweak-tifia-add-highway-trust-fund-fee). The [House Transportation Committee](https://transportation.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=409495) has positioned this as a long-overdue correction. Critics see it as a tax on cleaner technology at the worst possible time. Both arguments have merit, which is probably why the bill managed to attract bipartisan support in a committee where agreement is rare. [The EV transition](/news/hondas-15-billion-reset-exposes-the-brutal-math-of-the-ev-transition/) was never going to be painless. This is one more reminder of that. --- **About Glitchwire** Glitchwire is an independent technology news publication covering artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, science, security, policy, finance, and the broader technology industry. 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