Congress mandates roadside worker safety data and public awareness
S. 4245 — Safer Roads for Those Who Serve Act of 2026 · Filed by Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Mar 26, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires federal highway agencies to collect better data on roadside worker injuries and deaths, update public awareness campaigns about 'Move Over' laws to protect construction workers and utility personnel, and fund research into roadside worker safety. It also makes roadside worker protection a scoring factor in federal highway grant applications (INFRA, Mega, and BUILD programs).
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to improve roadside worker safety through data collection, public awareness, research funding, and grant-scoring incentives. It is straightforward occupational safety legislation with no hidden provisions or narrow beneficiaries.
What the text implies
- Grant-scoring changes may indirectly incentivize construction and utility companies to invest in work zone safety infrastructure, potentially raising project costs that could be passed to taxpayers or consumers.
- Data collection mandate on highway worker crashes may reveal systemic safety gaps in state DOT practices, potentially triggering federal enforcement or liability exposure for states with poor safety records.
- Public awareness campaigns and Move Over law promotion may reduce traffic citations for roadside workers, affecting municipal revenue streams that depend on traffic enforcement.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens benefit from reduced roadside worker fatalities and injuries, which improves public safety and reduces emergency response burdens. The bill creates no new costs to the public and mandates data transparency and evidence-based safety improvements.
Who stands to gain
- construction and engineering firms (work zone safety equipment/services)
- utility and waste management companies (safety compliance support)
- transportation research institutions (grant funding)
- tow truck operators (increased public awareness of hazards)
Named in the bill
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT), Transportation Research Board, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, Office of Operations (FHWA), INFRA grant program, Mega grant program, BUILD grant program
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Mar 26, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 26, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $549,747 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 61% of bills with at least one filing.
Catherine Cortez Masto, the sponsor, reported $298,634 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Society of Civil Engineers — $303,370 on 1 filing
- Associated General Contractors of America — $216,377 on 1 filing
- National Utility Contractors Association (nuca) — $30,000 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 full bill text on Jul 9, 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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