Federal grant program funds rural road digitization and public mapping
H.R. 5479 — MAP Roads Act · Filed by Blake Moore (R-UT) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 18, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a federal grant program to help states digitize county road records and create publicly accessible online maps of rural roads. States apply for grants, distribute funds to counties to convert paper maps into digital formats, and maintain centralized public databases. The program runs for six years (2026–2031) with $20 million per year authorized, aiming to improve rural commerce, public safety, and navigation.
Why we flagged it
The bill establishes a straightforward federal grant program to fund the conversion of analog county road records into digital, publicly accessible datasets. It is a targeted infrastructure investment in rural data infrastructure with clear public-benefit intent.
What the text implies
- Data standardization across states may create interoperability benefits for third-party mapping platforms (Google Maps, Apple Maps) without explicit compensation to states or counties, potentially shifting private mapping companies' data-acquisition costs to public sector.
- Sunset clause (2031) creates uncertainty for long-term maintenance of road datasets; counties may digitize roads but lack ongoing funding to update data after federal program ends.
- Savings clause (f) explicitly preserves existing property-rights disputes over road ownership and public access, meaning digitization does not resolve underlying legal conflicts—may expose counties to litigation if digital maps clarify disputed boundaries.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Rural residents and small businesses gain access to digitized, publicly available road data that was previously scattered across paper records, improving navigation, emergency response, and commerce. The program imposes no new restrictions on citizens and creates a public good with broad accessibility.
Who stands to gain
- State departments of transportation (administrative capacity building)
- County governments (grant funding for digitization labor and contractors)
- Mapping platform companies (third-party platforms gain standardized data at no cost)
Named in the bill
Secretary of Transportation, State departments of transportation, County governments, Geospatial Data Act of 2018, Title 23, United States Code
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 6 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Sep 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 18, 2025 — 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.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $50,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 35 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Blake Moore, the sponsor, reported $1,475,500 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership — $50,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,762 characters) on May 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 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.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal grant program funds rural road digitization and public mapping” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr5479 Report an error
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