Congress ties highway money to state ALPR surveillance limits
H.R. 10366 — NO FLOCK Act · Filed by Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Sep 14, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill withholds 10% of federal highway funding from any state that does not enact a law prohibiting automated license plate readers (ALPRs) except for five narrow uses: toll enforcement, finding stolen vehicles, locating missing/endangered persons, identifying vehicles registered to people with felony warrants, and investigating vehicles involved in felonies. The withholding begins in the third fiscal year after enactment and applies on the first day of each subsequent fiscal year.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a conditional withholding of federal highway funds designed to incentivize state adoption of ALPR restrictions. It is fundamentally a privacy-protection measure using fiscal leverage, not a transportation bill per se.
What the text implies
- States with limited legislative capacity or political opposition to privacy restrictions may face sustained highway funding losses, potentially widening infrastructure disparities between privacy-protective and surveillance-permissive states.
- The five enumerated exceptions to ALPR prohibition are broad enough to permit significant law-enforcement use; the bill does not eliminate ALPRs but channels them toward specific purposes, leaving room for interpretation disputes.
- Federal highway funding is apportioned by formula; a 10% withholding may disproportionately affect rural or lower-income states with fewer alternative revenue sources for road maintenance and repair.
- The bill does not address existing ALPR databases or historical data retention; it restricts future use but does not mandate deletion of records already collected.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill protects privacy by incentivizing state-level restrictions on mass surveillance via ALPRs, a genuine public benefit. However, the enforcement mechanism — withholding highway funds — imposes a collective cost on all citizens in a non-compliant state, including those who support ALPR restrictions but live in a state legislature that has not yet acted, creating a tension between privacy protection and equitable access to federal transportation resources.
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Transportation (Secretary), States (as regulated entities), Automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology sector, Law enforcement agencies
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Sep 14, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 14, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,121 characters) on Sep 18, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,342 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-18.
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