Federal AV Legislation Stalls: SELF DRIVE Act Excluded from Surface Reauthorization; Autonomous Trucking Preemption Language Advances Separately

Headline Finding

The SELF DRIVE Act of 2026 — which would have established a federal framework for autonomous passenger vehicle regulation and preempted state or local prohibitions on AV deployment — was excluded from the BUILD America 250 Act surface reauthorization package passed through House committee in spring 2026. The BUILD America 250 Act does include autonomous trucking language: a manufacturer-led safety case requirement (rather than a federally driven standard) and authority for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to preempt state laws deemed more stringent than federal regulations. The divergence — freight advancing, passenger vehicles stalled — reflects the political difficulty of resolving labor impacts and state preemption for robotaxis, and leaves cities and states as the primary regulatory arena for passenger AV governance for the foreseeable future.

Detail

The SELF DRIVE Act of 2026, introduced in the House earlier in 2026, would have created a comprehensive federal framework for autonomous passenger vehicle regulation and explicitly preempted state or local regulations prohibiting AV deployment. It was not included in the BUILD America 250 Act when that surface reauthorization package passed through committee. The BUILD America 250 Act does contain AV-related language, but only for autonomous trucking: it establishes a manufacturer-led safety case requirement — similar to language in the SELF DRIVE Act — rather than a federally driven safety standard, and it would enable FMCSA to preempt state laws that are determined to be more stringent than federal regulations on autonomous trucking.

The source assesses that incorporating passenger AV language into the reauthorization or advancing a standalone federal AV standards bill does not seem likely in the current congressional session. The political calculus is explicit: members of Congress heading into midterms may not see the benefit of voting on a politically contentious issue, particularly given that neither political party has a definitive strategy on labor impacts or state preemption. In late July 2026, Representative Kevin Mullin (D-CA) introduced the AV Emergency Response Coordination Act, which would require NHTSA to set minimum safety standards for AV interactions with first responders — a narrower, less contentious measure that reflects the gap-filling role NHTSA has been playing through letters and guidance in the absence of legislation.

Governance Implication

1. The governance clock is effectively paused at the federal level for passenger AVs: with the SELF DRIVE Act excluded from reauthorization and standalone legislation unlikely this session, states and cities remain the primary regulatory arena — a condition that the source explicitly identifies as placing localities ‘on the frontlines of both deployments and their regulations.’
2. The freight/passenger split in federal legislative progress is a structural asymmetry: autonomous trucking preemption language advances in BUILD America 250 while passenger AV governance stalls, meaning FMCSA gains preemption authority over states on freight while cities retain (by default) their regulatory role on robotaxis — a divergence that will shape which value levers cities can pull and for how long.
3. The manufacturer-led safety case model advancing for freight (rather than a federally driven standard) mirrors the A2SCEND consortium approach for passenger vehicles — both substitute industry-led processes for binding federal rulemaking, raising the same legitimacy-lever concern that safety advocates have flagged.
4. The AV Emergency Response Coordination Act signals that first-responder interaction is emerging as the politically viable entry point for federal passenger AV legislation — narrow, safety-framed, and bipartisan-adjacent — which cities should monitor as a potential vehicle for inserting local-needs language.
5. The midterm political dynamic creates a window of continued state and local regulatory activity: cities that move now to establish permitting frameworks, VMT taxes, or data-sharing requirements will be setting path-dependent precedents that a future federal framework will have to accommodate or override.

Sources

https://enotrans.org/article/autonomous-vehicles-regulatory-landscape-update/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/self-drive-act https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/build-america-250-act