Congress mandates AM radio in every new car—at your expense
S. 315 — AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2025 · Filed by Ed Markey (D-MA) · 60 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 29, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill requires the Department of Transportation to issue a rule within one year mandating that all new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. include AM radio receivers as standard equipment. Manufacturers get 2–3 years to comply (4 years for small manufacturers making fewer than 40,000 vehicles annually), and the rule sunsets after 10 years. The stated purpose is to ensure emergency alert access via AM broadcast, which the government can use to reach the public during crises.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward manufacturing mandate (install AM radio in all new vehicles), but it is justified primarily through emergency-alert and public-safety language. The emergency-alert framing is genuine but secondary to the core regulatory requirement.
What the text implies
- The bill mandates a hardware cost on all vehicle manufacturers and ultimately on consumers, even though AM radio adoption has declined sharply and most drivers may never use the feature.
- The 10-year sunset clause creates regulatory uncertainty for manufacturers; they must invest in AM-radio integration knowing the rule expires, potentially stranding that investment.
- The GAO study on IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) may recommend alternative technologies (e.g., cellular, satellite) that could supersede AM radio, making the mandate obsolete before the sunset date.
- Small manufacturers (≤40,000 vehicles/year) get a 4-year compliance window vs. 2–3 years for larger competitors, potentially disadvantaging smaller domestic producers relative to large foreign importers.
- The bill preempts state and local regulation of AM access in vehicles, centralizing control at the federal level and preventing states from experimenting with alternative emergency-alert technologies.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain a mandated emergency-alert capability (AM radio access in vehicles) that may improve crisis communication resilience, but the bill imposes a manufacturing cost that will likely be passed to consumers through higher vehicle prices. The emergency-alert benefit is real but speculative in magnitude; the cost to car buyers is concrete and unavoidable.
Who stands to gain
- AM radio broadcasters (increased audience reach and regulatory protection)
- Radio receiver manufacturers and component suppliers (new mandated market)
- Vehicle manufacturers (regulatory clarity, though compliance costs offset gains)
Named in the bill
Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Comptroller General (GAO), IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System), Passenger motor vehicle manufacturers, AM broadcast stations and broadcasters
Where it stands
60 cosponsors: 37 Republicans, 21 Democrats, 2 Independents.
- Jan 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 29, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
- Feb 5, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
33 lobbying clients named this bill on 55 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $25,176,601 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 98% of bills with at least one filing.
Ed Markey, the sponsor, reported $658,450 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Association of Broadcasters — $5,600,000 on 2 filings
- AARP — $5,300,000 on 1 filing
- Toyota Motor North America Inc (tma) — $3,483,687 on 2 filings
- Alliance for Automotive Innovation — $2,756,244 on 2 filings
- Consumer Technology Association — $2,450,000 on 2 filings
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 (10,056 characters) on Jun 8, 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 Dec 2025 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.
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