Autonomous Vehicle Law: Houchin Pushes SELF DRIVE Act Passage

A familiar argument with a deadline attached

At an Axios Live event in Washington on Aug. 22, Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) argued that driverless cars will not scale nationally without one federal rulebook. She presented the SELF DRIVE Act as the bill that would provide it.1 Houchin co-sponsors the legislation, and she grounded her case in interstate commerce. Roads cross state lines, she said, so the rules governing the vehicles on them should come from the federal government.1 Kinsey Fabrizio, president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, appeared alongside her and called the current mix of state policies costly, confusing and hard to navigate. She said companies need settled rules before they can design products around them.16 Honda sponsored the event. IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles also took part.1

The new part was the timeline. Houchin said that if the bill does not pass by December, supporters will reintroduce it in the 120th Congress.1 In separate coverage of the same event, she blamed the delay on the calendar, not on opposition. Congress has a crowded agenda and little time left, she said, and the obstacle is "a factor of time, not willingness."4 That is a hopeful way to describe it. The rest of the record points to a more contested picture.

What the bill would actually do

The SELF DRIVE Act of 2026 is H.R. 7390. Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) introduced it on Feb. 5. Its stated purposes are to keep the U.S. ahead in autonomous driving, improve road safety and accessibility, and encourage testing and deployment of self-driving vehicles. Axios's summary says the bill puts safety standards first, sets national thresholds for testing and deployment, and covers cybersecurity, while leaving licensing and registration to the states.1 The Center Square adds that it would place self-driving cars under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), expand crash-data sharing and raise safety requirements.6

Legal analysts focus on the details that drive the political fight:

• Safety cases instead of approval in advance. Manufacturers would have to prepare a "safety case" for each automated driving system. A safety case is the company's documented argument that its system does not pose an unreasonable risk. Companies would certify these themselves, not get regulators to approve them first.2325
• Required capabilities. Each safety case would have to show the system can handle the full driving task within its intended operating area. The system would also need to respond to pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, react to emergency vehicles, emergency personnel and school buses, and obey state and local traffic laws.
• Federal preemption. States and localities could not block a manufacturer from selling or deploying a system that has a compliant safety case.23
• A national crash database. A federal repository would collect reports of serious crashes and quarterly mileage figures. It would replace NHTSA's current crash-reporting order, and states could not demand duplicate reports.23
• No manual controls required. Fully driverless vehicles would no longer need steering wheels or pedals, as long as passengers can order the vehicle to stop safely and then get out.

One point in the coverage tends to get lost. The bill does not raise the 2,500-vehicle annual cap on commercial exemptions for vehicles that don't meet federal standards. A companion bill from Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act, would raise that cap to 90,000.923 The full committee ordered an amended version of Guthrie's bill reported on May 21.28 Read together, the two bills split the industry's goals: SELF DRIVE handles preemption and standards, and Guthrie's bill handles how many vehicles can be deployed.

The bipartisan label has worn thin

Howard Houchin's "time, not willingness" framing is hard to square with the bill's history this year. Latta and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) released the draft together in January.23 At the subcommittee markup in February, the bill passed 12–11 along party lines. Dingell had withdrawn as a co-sponsor and voted against it.2125 Smart Cities Dive reported that Democrats objected mainly to the limits on state and local authority. Dingell still said she believed a bipartisan framework would eventually become law.25 Reports differ on small details. One outlet dated the vote Feb. 9 and called the panel the full committee. Others place it at the subcommittee on Feb. 10.2126 On the main fact, a one-vote partisan margin, they agree.

This is the third version of the bill. Earlier versions in 2017 and 2021 did not become law.23 The 2017 bill passed the House by voice vote and then died in the Senate.28 Axios has said federal AV legislation has been stuck for close to a decade.9 In that light, Houchin's promise to reintroduce the bill next Congress reads less like a backup plan and more like an acknowledgment that this round may also fall short.

The safety lobby's counterargument

The sharpest criticism is aimed at preemption. Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, told the Austin American-Statesman in January that the proposals would leave a gap. States would be barred from regulating autonomous vehicles, and the federal government still wouldn't be regulating them in any meaningful way, leaving the courts as the only check.10 He warned that the preemption language was broad enough to raise doubts about whether states could enforce even ordinary traffic laws against AV companies.10 Sidley's legal analysis reads the text more narrowly. It suggests states might still regulate vehicles already on the road, such as by revoking an operating license.23

The argument continued at another Axios event on Oct. 1. Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said AVs could end up safer than human drivers. She was worried about putting people at risk without federal safety standards, which she said would give consumers a clear bar companies must meet.8 Nuro co-CEO Dave Ferguson replied that the technology has already proven itself, pointing to Waymo's safety disclosures.8 Both sides say they want federal rules. They disagree about what those rules should require and whether they should displace state authority.

The Texas example shows why states resist. Texas rewrote its AV law to require state authorization, recording devices and plans for interacting with first responders. Broad federal preemption could undercut those rules.10 Meanwhile, Waymo vehicles in Austin were found to have illegally passed school buses more than 20 times in a few months.10 The SELF DRIVE Act's specific mention of school buses in its capability requirements looks like a response to incidents of this kind.

Washington is not waiting for Congress

The biggest gap between Houchin's argument and current events is that the executive branch is already building a federal framework without new legislation. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has presented AV policy as a race with China.9 (Axios's event writeup misidentifies him as "Scott Duffy."1) NHTSA has proposed rules to drop requirements designed for human drivers, including windshield wiper and defroster rules in March and the brake-pedal requirement in June.1118 It has also withdrawn AV STEP, a voluntary oversight program proposed under the Biden administration.19

On July 30–31, NHTSA granted Zoox the first commercial deployment exemption for a purpose-built robotaxi. The exemption allows up to 2,500 vehicles a year for two years, under ongoing "operational authorization" oversight.1320 The agency also issued an interim rule that lets vehicles built before an exemption is granted qualify for one. It launched a $5 million consortium with SAE to develop the first AV performance standards, explicitly meant to replace the state-by-state patchwork.1320

This is the central tension. Regulators can relax equipment rules and approve vehicles one company at a time. Only Congress can raise the 2,500-vehicle cap or preempt state law.1528 NHTSA's own Federal Register notice notes that its exemptions still run through procedures and findings set by statute.12

The likely path

Here is our reading. Houchin is right that the industry wants federal certainty, and right that the regulatory side is moving on its own. Still, the evidence doesn't support the idea that only time is in the way. The 12–11 vote, Dingell's departure and the criticism from safety groups point to a real policy disagreement over preemption and self-certification. The clearest route for the bill was the expiring surface transportation authorization, which analysts identified as a likely vehicle for these provisions.2123 Unless that package or a negotiated compromise brings Democrats back, the SELF DRIVE Act will probably end up where Houchin herself predicted: reintroduced next Congress. Until then, NHTSA's exemption-by-exemption approach will effectively serve as federal AV policy.