This bill removes two existing surface-transportation programs—the Carbon Reduction Program and the PROTECT program—and creates a single National Bridge Program in their place. The new program pays for bridge replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, protection, and construction on Federal-aid highways, and gives states the option to use funds on non-Federal bridges.
The bill changes how money flows: it establishes a formula that allocates most funding by total bridge deck area and a smaller share by deck area of bridges rated in poor condition, and requires the Department to base those calculations on the National Bridge Inventory as of December 31, 2024. For practitioners, that means a reorientation of federal dollars away from some climate and resilience activities toward bridge-focused capital work, with practical consequences for project pipelines, procurement, and state asset-management priorities.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill repeals prior statutory authority for the Carbon Reduction and PROTECT programs and inserts a new section creating a National Bridge Program. It requires the Secretary of Transportation to distribute funds using a two-part formula: 75% by each State’s share of total Federal-aid bridge deck area and 25% by each State’s share of deck area of bridges in poor condition, using the National Bridge Inventory as of December 31, 2024.
Who It Affects
State departments of transportation (state DOTs) are the primary implementers and beneficiaries; local governments that own non‑Federal bridges may gain access if their state chooses to extend eligibility; bridge builders, engineering firms, and materials suppliers should expect a shift in demand. Agencies and programs that previously received Carbon Reduction or PROTECT grants will see their federal funding streams removed.
Why It Matters
The change redirects federal investment from emissions-reduction and resilience-focused grants to bridge capital work and uses an objective, infrastructure-focused metric (deck area) to allocate dollars. That alters incentives for state asset-management choices and could materially change which projects advance in the near term.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill rewrites chapter 1 of title 23 to eliminate the Carbon Reduction Program and the PROTECT program and replaces them with a single National Bridge Program. The new program is written broadly: it funds the full lifecycle of bridge work—replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, protection, and construction—on Federal-aid highways and, at a State’s discretion, for bridges that are not on Federal-aid highways.
That optionality leaves a policy choice to each State about whether to extend federal dollars to locally owned bridges.
Under the inserted statutory text, the Secretary must distribute funds among States using a two-part formula tied to measures in the National Bridge Inventory. Seventy-five percent of the apportioned funds go to States in proportion to their share of total deck area on Federal-aid bridges; the remaining 25 percent goes to States in proportion to their share of deck area classified as in poor condition.
The Inventory snapshot date is fixed in the statute: December 31, 2024. The bill also updates cross-references throughout title 23 and removes the prior statutory language authorizing the eliminated programs.Practically, States will need to reconcile their asset-management and investment plans with a system that privileges deck area over other measures (traffic, structural importance, or economic impact).
The Department of Transportation will implement the apportionment, adjust administrative guidance and systems to accept the statutory Inventory baseline, and issue any necessary rules or notices explaining how it computes deck area and poor-condition totals from NBI data. Because funding is moved from programs with climate- and resilience-focused eligibility to a bridge-centric pot, some projects previously funded under emissions reduction or resilience grants will no longer have an explicit federal funding source under this statute.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill repeals 23 U.S.C. §175 (Carbon Reduction Program) and §176 (PROTECT Program) and inserts a new §175 establishing a National Bridge Program.
The Secretary must allocate National Bridge Program funds 75% by each State’s share of total Federal-aid bridge deck area and 25% by each State’s share of deck area of Federal-aid bridges rated in poor condition.
The statute requires the Department to base those deck-area calculations on the National Bridge Inventory as of December 31, 2024.
States may, at their discretion, obligate National Bridge Program funds for bridges that are not on Federal-aid highways, creating potential local access to the new funds.
Section 104(b)(7) of title 23 is amended to designate 5.47660865256628 percent of the remaining funds (after distributions under paragraphs (4), (5), and (6)) for the National Bridge Program.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Makes the Act the 'National Bridge Funding Reform Act.' This is a standard naming provision with no operative effect beyond identifying the statute.
Amendment to 23 U.S.C. §104 — funding source defined
Revises subsection (b) of section 104 to remove the prior paragraphs that funded Carbon Reduction and PROTECT and to insert a new item allocating a fixed share (see §2(d) insertion) of the post-distribution pot to the National Bridge Program. In practice this changes the reporting and apportionment line-item that flows into the new program and fixes the program’s share at a precise decimal percentage of the remaining funds after certain other statutory distributions.
Program eliminations
Strikes the statutory text for the Carbon Reduction Program and the PROTECT program from chapter 1 of title 23. Removing these sections eliminates statutory eligibility, objectives, and any future grant authority tied to those specific programs; ongoing grants and currently obligated funds under existing contracts would still be governed by their prior grant agreements, but future authorizations under those program headings would no longer exist in statute.
New 23 U.S.C. §175 — National Bridge Program
Creates the operative National Bridge Program. It lists allowable uses (replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, protection, construction) and expressly permits States to obligate funds on non‑Federal bridges at the State’s discretion. The apportionment is defined in two parts (75% total deck area; 25% deck area in poor condition) and ties distribution calculations to a specific NBI snapshot date—December 31, 2024—removing annual or rolling data flexibility and locking the baseline for the first apportionment.
Conforming and clerical changes
Edits cross-references throughout title 23 to remove or replace references to the eliminated programs and adds the new item for section 175 into the chapter analysis. These are housekeeping edits that adjust statutory navigation, but they also force administrative updates to program guidance, Federal-aid manuals, and any statutory references used in agency rulemaking and financial systems.
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Explore Transportation in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- State DOTs with large bridge networks — States with greater total Federal-aid bridge deck area gain a larger share of the pot under the 75% allocation, increasing capital funds for bridge work.
- States with concentrated 'poor' deck area — States that have significant deck area rated poor will receive proportionally more from the 25% poor-condition slice, helping address urgent structural needs.
- Local governments (conditionally) — If a State chooses to extend eligibility to non‑Federal bridges, local bridge owners could access new federal funds previously unavailable under those program headings.
- Bridge construction and engineering firms — Concentration of federal dollars into bridge projects will likely expand bid opportunities, especially for large-span and high-deck-area work.
- State asset-management programs — Agencies can streamline bridge-focused planning with a dedicated federal stream tied to an objective inventory metric, simplifying some capital programming decisions.
Who Bears the Cost
- Climate and resilience program recipients — Agencies, MPOs, and states that relied on Carbon Reduction and PROTECT grants for decarbonization or resilience projects lose those program-specific federal funds under this statute.
- States with small deck area or few poor bridges — Jurisdictions whose bridge inventory is small in deck area stand to receive less funding than under prior, differently weighted allocations, reducing their near-term capital options.
- Federal agencies and FHWA — FHWA will need to rewrite guidance, adjust financial systems, and manage stakeholder transitions; those administrative costs and workload shifts fall to the agency unless separately funded.
- Communities prioritized by metrics other than deck area — Locations that justified projects based on vehicle miles traveled, safety risk, or economic impact rather than deck area may find the new funding stream less aligned with prior priorities.
- Programs and contractors focused on resilience or emissions-reduction retrofits — Those market segments may see reduced federal demand as dollars move to traditional bridge capital projects.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is a choice between an administrable, infrastructure‑centric allocation (deck area) that channels money into visible capital repairs and the policy goal of using federal transportation dollars to reduce emissions and bolster resilience; the bill solves for allocation simplicity and bridge capital scale but undermines flexible, outcome‑driven investments in climate and resilience that many states and MPOs currently pursue.
The bill trades programmatic flexibility and policy objectives for an objective, inventory-based allocation. Locking the baseline to the NBI as of December 31, 2024 simplifies apportionment calculations but freezes a snapshot that may not reflect subsequent deterioration, recent rehabilitation, or newly inventoryable structures.
That snapshot rule reduces annual volatility but creates a potential mismatch between current needs and statutory distribution until Congress updates the date or the statute provides a rolling mechanism.
Relying on deck area as the primary allocation metric raises important policy questions. Deck area is an administrable and hard metric, but it correlates imperfectly with functional importance, traffic exposure, economic impact, and risk to public safety.
The 75/25 split privileges size over condition and could advantage states with many long-span structures that are in fair condition over states with many small bridges that are failing. Implementation will also raise operational issues: FHWA must interpret NBI fields consistently, reconcile data quality differences among States, and guard against incentives to change inventory practices to influence allocations.
Finally, eliminating the Carbon Reduction and PROTECT programs shifts federal priorities away from dedicated climate and resilience funding—creating gaps in ongoing resilience projects and potential legal or contractual questions about previously obligated but now statutorily unsupported program continuations.
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