Congress directs more federal highway money to protect students in school zones
H.R. 6821 — Protect Our Students Act · Filed by Dina Titus (D-NV) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Dec 17, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill expands federal highway safety funding to explicitly include school zone safety improvements—crossing guards, traffic lights, speed-reduction measures, and automated enforcement—as eligible uses under existing state highway safety programs. It increases the minimum allocation for these programs from 40% to 50% of available funds, directing more federal money toward reducing student injuries and deaths in school zones.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to expand federal highway safety funding eligibility and increase mandatory allocation percentages for school zone safety improvements. It is a straightforward public-safety measure with no hidden riders or private carve-outs.
What the text implies
- Automated traffic enforcement (item 8 in the regulations list) may generate revenue for states/localities through citations, creating a potential financial incentive to deploy cameras in school zones—a secondary effect not explicitly addressed in the bill.
- The bill does not specify how the 50% allocation floor interacts with other competing highway safety priorities, potentially creating tension between school zone funding and other safety programs.
- States retain discretion over implementation; variation in how aggressively states pursue school zone improvements may create disparities in safety outcomes across districts.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Students and families gain concrete safety improvements—traffic calming, crossing guards, enforcement—funded by federal dollars previously unavailable for this purpose. The bill redirects existing federal highway safety money toward a documented public-health problem (100 student deaths, 25,000 injuries annually in school zones) without creating new costs to citizens.
Who stands to gain
- state and local transportation agencies (increased federal funding allocation)
- traffic safety equipment manufacturers (crossing guard systems, beacons, signage, traffic lights)
- engineering and consulting firms (school zone audits and assessments)
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Transportation, State highway safety programs, Title 23, United States Code (federal highway funding statute), Section 402(a)(2)(vi) and 402(b)(1)(C)
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Dec 17, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 17, 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 2 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $0 in lobbying spend. A filing names 6 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.
Dina Titus, the sponsor, reported $775,196 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Safe Routes to School National Partnership — $0 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 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 (1,287 characters) on Sep 7, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,398 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 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-23.
“Congress directs more federal highway money to protect students in school zones” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr6821 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.