Next week, the NAB and state broadcasters associations are organizing a trip to Washington, DC to draw attention to the AM for Every Vehicle Act.
The measure has massive bipartisan support and President Trump has said he will sign it into law, but it faces heavy resistance and millions of dollars in counter-lobbying from auto makers and the consumer technology Association.
So the strategy on Capitol Hill has shifted to bypass the floor bottleneck.
Instead of waiting for a standalone floor vote on the act, lawmakers have successfully attached the mandate to a major, “must-pass” piece of legislation.
The New Strategy: The Ride-Along Package
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted 48–1 to embed the full text of the AM Act directly into H.R. 7389 (The Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026).
From there, the legislative strategy is to absorb that entire modernization bill into the multi-billion-dollar BUILD America 250 Act—the five-year surface transportation reauthorization package.
Why This Timing Matters
The current federal highway, transit, and bridge funding authorities are set to expire on September 30, 2026. Because a failure to pass the BUILD America 250 Act would cause federal transportation programs to lapse nationwide, it has a hard, urgent deadline that leadership from both parties want to hit.
By attaching the AM radio mandate to this must-pass infrastructure train, proponents have created the clearest path to the president’s desk since the dashboard fight began.
The Catch for Radio Broadcasters
While local stations and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) are celebrating this new avenue to victory, the package includes a massive catch that has caught the industry off guard.
Also folded into H.R. 7389 is the text of the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent nationwide.
This is a double-edged sword for local radio operators:
The Good: AM radio is legally locked into future dashboards.
The Bad: Permanent Daylight Saving Time means winter sunrises will occur much later in the morning. For hundreds of AM stations across the country, FCC regulations require them to operate at significantly reduced power before local sunrise to prevent signal interference. Permanent DST could crush their coverage maps during peak morning drive-time hours.
The industry is currently in a position where getting the dashboard protection they desperately want might mean accepting a morning signal reduction they deeply fear.
The NAB Background Packet
The National Association of Broadcasters has prepared an issue sheet containing more information about the act:
The Issue
America’s public safety infrastructure is at risk if automakers remove AM radio from vehicles.
- Policymakers should enact the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (S. 315, H.R. 979) to keep this vital service in their vehicles to ensure Americans can be alerted to impending danger.
Go Deeper
AM radio serves a vital role in our nation’s emergency infrastructure as the backbone of the Emergency Alert System. When the power goes out and cell networks are down, the car radio is often the only way for people to get information, sometimes for days at a time.
- With tens of millions of weekly listeners1, AM radio is also an extremely popular way for Americans to stay connected to both national and local news, sports and entertainment.
- AM radio is highly important to agricultural communities, providing weather updates, crop reports and other information to farmers and ranchers.
- AM stations also serve communities of color and underrepresented groups with in-language, religious and other community-oriented niche programming.
Despite this, certain automakers have removed AM radio as a feature on electric vehicles and signaled that they may remove AM radio from new models of internal combustion engine vehicles in the future.
- Rightly, there has been a public outcry from members of Congress, Federal Communications Commission officials and former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrators about removing AM radio from vehicles.
“Experts at [FEMA]…have been clear: eliminating the AM radio will put public safety at risk.”
Broadcasters have been working with automakers to address concerns they may have, including utilizing a simple software upgrade that reduces noise and interference. We want to ensure Americans can continue to enjoy the local news, entertainment, public safety benefits and connection AM radio has to offer without sacrificing vehicle performance.
Additional Resources
Sources: NAB, Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, independent reporting