Congress wants to kill D.C. congestion pricing before the new mayor even takes office

If you drive a car into downtown Washington, you pay nothing for the road space you consume. If you ride Metro, you pay a fare. That arithmetic has shaped D.C. transportation policy for decades - and a bill moving through Congress would lock it in permanently, before the city's next mayor gets a single day in office to try something different.

The legislation is called the DC ROADS Act (H.R. 8801). It would permanently block the District from ever implementing a congestion pricing system, amending the Home Rule Act to prohibit D.C. from imposing any fee on drivers to enter or pass through the city. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced it on May 20 in a markup that drew the sharpest divide of the session over a Republican bid to ban D.C. congestion pricing.

The vote was close. The DC ROADS Act passed 22 to 18, the narrowest margin of the entire markup. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania introduced the bill. It now sits pending a potential vote in the full House.

Here's why the timing matters to D.C. residents right now: Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic primary, with the Associated Press calling the race two days after Election Day. She beat six other candidates, including Kenyan McDuffie, who conceded before the race was called. In a city where Democrats win general elections by overwhelming margins, Lewis George is the overwhelming favorite to become the next mayor in November. And congestion pricing was one of the clearest policy dividing lines of her campaign.

What the bill actually does - and doesn't do

The bill would prohibit D.C. from imposing any charge to enter or pass through D.C. No such charge currently exists in D.C., and no bills or regulations are pending in D.C. to impose any. That's the point Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton made bluntly at the markup. She called it the fifth time this Congress that Republicans had 'wasted this Committee's time on paternalistic, anti-home rule bills designed to interfere with D.C. traffic policies.'

Perry has repeatedly used standalone bills, amendments, and riders to block or repeal D.C.'s traffic safety laws, yet not a single one has been enacted. That track record gives D.C. advocates some reason for patience. But the political situation in Congress has changed, and the timing of a House floor vote is not certain.

The legal mechanism matters. The bill would amend the Home Rule Act - not pass a standalone transportation measure subject to normal legislative review, but rewrite the foundational document governing what D.C. can and cannot do. That's a different category of intervention. Once it's in the Home Rule Act, reversing it requires another act of Congress.

With mayoral candidates signaling openness to congestion pricing, Republicans moved to foreclose the option entirely. The Trump administration's campaign against congestion pricing nationally put the committee squarely in alignment with the White House on that fight. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy separately launched a 'Freedom to Drive' initiative, and the administration fought New York City's congestion pricing program in federal court earlier this year.

What D.C. was actually considering

The backstory here goes back years. The D.C. Council voted to fund a congestion pricing study in 2019. Although it was completed in 2021, Mayor Muriel Bowser's office only released it in March 2026.

The DC ROADS Act was the direct product of that March 2026 D.C. Department of Transportation study recommending a $10 fee on vehicles entering downtown D.C. Bowser opposed the study's findings, calling it 'the wrong policy at the wrong time.'

Bowser's opposition stems from concern that a toll would discourage people from coming into the city at a time when it has still not rebounded to pre-pandemic activity, in terms of office occupancy and foot traffic at local businesses. That's a real argument - downtown D.C.'s office vacancy rate remains high, and any new cost on commuters is politically sensitive.

Lewis George landed on the opposite side. She delivered what Greater Greater Washington described as 'an unprompted ode to road pricing,' arguing that 'congestion pricing will improve health outcomes, transportation outcomes, and of course, generate revenue.' After Lewis George said she would release the DDOT Congestion Pricing study within 48 hours of being sworn in, Bowser released the study herself. As mayor, Lewis George has said she would carefully review and, if necessary, update the study and work with community members, District officials, and officials from surrounding jurisdictions to consider implementation.

That platform helped her win. Initial results showed Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist, with a strong lead in the mayor's race. McDuffie conceded the Democratic primary to Lewis George, who took 52.87% of the vote in the updated tally released by the DC Board of Elections.

The regional fault lines

The vote split was not purely partisan. The crossover vote by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia illustrated the geographic fault lines in the debate. Northern Virginia Democrats face different constituent pressures than their urban counterparts.

That's the political reality Congress is navigating. Maryland and Virginia commuters drive into D.C. every day. Any congestion charge would hit them directly. Republican supporters of the bill argue that congestion pricing could place an added financial burden on commuters traveling into Washington from Maryland and Virginia.

But the counterargument runs the other direction too. Supporters of road pricing note that tolls collected from Maryland and Virginia commuters could be returned to those states to help fund their contributions to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority budget. Metro's chronic funding shortfall is a regional problem, and congestion pricing was one proposed piece of the solution.

Any congestion pricing proposal would likely face hurdles under the current White House administration regardless, since it would require approval from the Federal Highway Administration, which tried to revoke New York City's authority to implement its own program.

Home Rule, again

Norton, who cannot vote on the House floor, used the markup as a forum. She pointed to H.R. 51 - the D.C. statehood bill - as the structural remedy to what she called Congress's repeated democratic overreach into local governance.

Norton noted that D.C.'s 700,000 residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are capable and worthy of governing themselves. It's a point she has made many times. But it lands differently now, with a new mayor about to take office who ran explicitly on the right to set D.C. transportation policy without congressional interference.

The statehood bill is not going anywhere under the current Congress. So the question becomes a narrower one: will House leadership schedule a full floor vote on the DC ROADS Act before Congress leaves for another recess, or will it stall like so many committee-passed D.C. bills before it?

Of the 20 bills that have passed out of the Oversight Committee during this Congress, only about half have been voted on by the full House. Advancement out of committee doesn't ensure the bill becomes District law. House leadership needs to schedule a rules debate and full floor vote, which hasn't always been a quick process. And if the bill passes the House, it could be subject to a filibuster in the Senate.

The DC Shadow Senator Ankit Jain put it plainly. 'D.C. does not do congestion pricing. There is no bill pending to implement it. There's no conversation right now about doing it anytime soon,' Jain said. He added: 'It just shows the need to me for DC statehood. Until we get DC statehood, these kinds of attacks will continue coming forward.'

The practical problem for D.C. is that the next mayor's ability to govern her own city's streets - a policy she ran on, won on, and will be elected to carry out - is being constrained by a Pennsylvania congressman whose district is 130 miles away.

Lewis George became the first self-described democratic socialist to serve as a member of the D.C. Council since Hilda Mason was defeated for re-election in 1998. She is a third-generation Washingtonian; her mother worked as a union postal worker and her paternal grandmother was a lunch lady at Alice Deal Middle School. She'll be sworn in as mayor in January. The DC ROADS Act could be waiting on the House floor when she gets there.

What D.C. Residents Should Watch

• House floor scheduling: Watch whether Speaker Mike Johnson schedules a full floor vote on the DC ROADS Act when Congress returns from recess in September. The bill passed committee 22-18 - a thin margin that signals it is not a priority item but is not dead either.
• Lewis George's transition: The mayor-elect has said she would update the DDOT congestion pricing study and pursue regional coordination with Maryland and Virginia. Watch whether she uses the transition period to build that coalition before the bill moves further.
• The Senate filibuster math: Even if the House passes the DC ROADS Act, it would need 60 Senate votes to clear a filibuster. That's a high bar - but so was getting a congestion pricing ban out of committee in the first place.
• Stop DC CAMERA Act: The traffic-camera ban passed committee the same Congress. Both the Stop DC CAMERA Act and the DC ROADS Act are pending a potential vote in the full House. Together they represent the broadest legislative push against D.C. traffic enforcement in years.
• WMATA funding: If congestion pricing is permanently blocked federally, the question of how D.C. - and the region - fund Metro over the long term becomes more urgent. The FY2027 budget process left Metro's dedicated funding unresolved, and that clock is still running.

Sources

• WJLA/7News: House panel advances bill to block future DC congestion pricing
• DC News Now: House Oversight Committee passes bill, prevents DC from enforcing congestion toll
• Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton press release, May 20, 2026
• Legis1: House Committee Clashes Over DC Congestion Pricing Ban
• DC News Now: Janeese Lewis George wins DC mayoral primary
• The DC Line: McDuffie concedes to Lewis George
• Janeese Lewis George campaign platform: Reliable Transportation For All
• Greater Greater Washington: GGWash endorses Janeese Lewis George
• Washingtonian: DC Traffic Camera Ban Passes a Committee Vote in the House
• Landline Media: Could D.C. be next? Study backs congestion pricing