States must now publicly justify every $10M+ transportation project
S. 3629 — Transportation Project Accountability Act of 2026 · Filed by Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jan 13, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill requires states to publicly report annually on transportation projects costing over $10 million, including how well each project meets national transportation goals, its estimated benefits, and why it was selected. States must then track whether these projects actually deliver the promised benefits and incorporate that performance data into future project selection decisions.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is mandatory public disclosure and performance tracking of state transportation projects. It creates no new funding, subsidies, or carve-outs; it simply requires states to report how they select and evaluate projects against stated national goals.
What the text implies
- States may face pressure to justify projects that cannot demonstrate alignment with national goals, potentially shifting project selection away from local/political priorities toward measurable outcomes—a subtle but significant shift in decision-making power.
- Public reporting of project selection rationale and geographic coordinates may expose patterns of geographic favoritism or political allocation, creating political risk for state DOTs and elected officials.
- The requirement to track actual vs. projected benefits creates a feedback loop that could eventually influence federal funding allocation if Congress uses performance data to reward or penalize states.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens gain transparency and accountability over how their tax dollars fund transportation projects. Public reporting of project selection criteria, performance metrics, and actual outcomes enables voters and local communities to scrutinize whether projects deliver promised benefits and whether selection processes are rational rather than political.
Named in the bill
State transportation departments, Federal Highway Administration, Section 135 of title 23 USC, Section 150 of title 23 USC, Statewide transportation improvement programs
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Jan 13, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 13, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works”
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 $303,370 in lobbying spend. A filing names 61 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.
Angela Alsobrooks, the sponsor, reported $493,679 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Society of Civil Engineers — $303,370 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 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 full bill text on Jul 2, 2026; 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 17, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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