LEADERSHIP
Lead the industry by advancing the national legislative, regulatory, and policy interests of the asphalt pavement industry, serving as trusted experts, and increasing participation in NAPA’s advocacy strategy.
Ensuring a Robust Surface
Transportation Reauthorization
Transportation Reauthorization
NAPA’s Government Affairs team continues to advocate for policy priorities that strengthen the asphalt industry’s market growth and policy impacts on asphalt production and deployment — priorities ranging from robust funding to worker safety and streamlining project delivery.
Fred Smith Co. President Ty Johnson testifies on behalf of NAPA a House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee hearing
Continued work in 2025 included crafting and promoting NAPA’s core policy objectives in anticipation of highway reauthorization in 2026, with key provisions outlined in our Congressional one-pagers below:
Hill Day
NAPA’s joint Hill Day event with the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA) and National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) in September brought more than 300 stakeholders, including 75 NAPA members, to Washington, D.C. for networking, advocacy training, and meetings with dozens of lawmakers and staff on Capitol Hill.
Pave It Black
SEASON 9
NAPA’s flagship podcast entered its ninth season of exploring topics in and around the asphalt pavement industry with a focus on leadership.
Leaders inside and outside the asphalt pavement industry shared challenges and accomplishments from their personal leadership journeys to help listeners enhance their leadership skills.
“We’re extraordinarily pleased that these necessary updates to taxes on small and medium American businesses were implemented in passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Nile Elam, NAPA Vice President
Government Affairs
One Big Beautiful Bill & Speed Act
NAPA’s Government Affairs team has been working with members since early 2024 on potential tax policies that best position mix producers to successfully propel the domestic economy while connecting Americans coast to coast. NAPA members took those concepts directly to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, sharing the direct impact of federal policies such as Section 199A reform, bonus depreciation for items like heavy industrial equipment, R&D tax credits to spur innovation, and estate tax changes on their largely family-run businesses.
“NAPA will continue engaging policymakers to ensure the long-term economic security of our surface transportation network,” said NAPA President & CEO Audrey Copeland. “Because this system is critical to American prosperity – moving people and commerce smoothly, efficiently, and safely.”
Sharing Asphalt’s Story with Key Decision-Makers
NAPA advocacy efforts blossomed in 2025, setting records for engagement with members of Congress while working alongside agency partners to safeguard the future of the industry.
“Since the authorization of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System nearly 70 years ago, our nation’s road network has been continuously overutilized and underfunded.”
Nile Elam, NAPA Vice President
Government Affairs
NAPA Vice President for Government Affairs Nile Elam penned an op-ed for The Washington Times in June that sought to illustrate just how outdated the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and its revenue sources—gas and diesel fuel taxes—have become in their present form, which has not changed since 1993.
New User Fees Pave the only Road to Healthy Highways
Elam, who was named to The Hill’s Top Lobbyist list for the second year in a row, also wrote a piece for the Times in April titled “Nation’s prosperity depends on our roads.”
Innovating Airfields with CCPR
Allan Myers played host to NAPA staff at two facilities in the Mid-Atlantic in the fall, including at a project at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City, N.J.
Crews began experimenting with cold central plant recycling (CCPR) at the facility, eventually constructing a series of test strips to be evaluated with special equipment that can emulate the pressure conditions of heavy aircraft as a measure of performance. The fire truck-sized apparatus can be customized to simulate the conditions of several airplane models, with an even more specialized tool inside the National Airport Pavement Test facility at the Hughes Center capable of simulating the pavement stress equal to some of the largest aircraft on earth.
Jean-Paul Fort Named CAPRI Vice Chair
Part of NAPA’s continued role as a national leader in research and technology, NAPA Pavement Engineering & Innovation Director Jean-Paul Fort was elected in the spring to represent the industry as Vice Chair of the Consortium for Asphalt Pavement Research and Implementation (CAPRI).
CAPRI is a pooled fund with industry, academia, and departments of transportation developed to tackle critical challenges for the asphalt community. CAPRI’s dozens of members generate research funding with dues. Members, in turn, receive a voice when it’s time to select projects to fund.
Enhancing Worker Safety
NAPA once again led the National Work Zone Safety Coalition alongside the American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA), a group of 16 member organizations including national trades representing engineers, equipment manufacturers and distributors, unions, road contractors, construction materials groups, and utility contractors. The collective has become a resource that Capitol Hill staff and Members of Congress can work with to drive results.
Additionally, the Coalition has addressed the T&I Committee and USDOT to share policy priorities including increasing policy presence in work zones, deploying federal work zone safety contingency funds, requiring work zone training in drivers education courses nationwide, and incentivizing lane and road closures during construction.
Preventing Roadside and Work Zone Deaths Act
In April, with the help of NAPA, Representative Troy Carter (R-La) introduced the Preventing Roadside and Work Zone Deaths Act. This bill would increase the deployment of work zone safety contingency funds, stand up a working group with FHWA and other stakeholders to improve work zone safety, and increase data collection for work zone crashes. Our Coalition also worked with Senate partners to introduce a companion bill, increasing the likelihood that these provisions will be rolled into the next highway reauthorization package.
NAPA’s Heat Illness Prevention Resources Provide Guidance Among Uncertainty
In January 2025, NAPA submitted Agency comments illustrating our industry’s progress on meeting OSHA’s ongoing National Emphasis Program while emphasizing that a one-size-fits-all rule – like the previous administration’s rulemaking to establish a Heat Standard – would not be effective or tenable due to logistical constraints associated with asphalt road construction work.
As an alternative, NAPA called to OSHA’s attention our industry’s ongoing efforts to protect road construction workers from outdoor heat. Given that OSHA’s priorities have changed substantially since January, and ongoing litigation, the proposed Heat Standard rule remains highly uncertain.
Members Imagine new Workforce Approaches at NAPA Midyear
Dunn Construction’s Chris Stricklin tackled the industry’s workforce constraints as only a former fighter pilot could, drawing connections between his career with the U.S. Air Force and the factors that lead to employee retention in any industry.
Stricklin explained how Dunn Construction spun off Dunn University through a partnership with Jefferson State Community College. Through the new educational component, new hires spent the first two weeks training, allowing them to grow into their position during their first days with the company instead of a daunting traditional onboarding that can drive these recruits away.
“Think about the power of a ticket to the middle class for people,” he said. “We need careers with career progression pathways.”
Balanced Mix Design: Moving Beyond Approaches
In the realm of pavement engineering, achieving optimal performance while ensuring cost-effectiveness and sustainability is a continual challenge. In April, the Balanced Mix Design (BMD) Implementation Working Group (IWG) presented a new standard of practice to AASHTO designed to replace AASHTO PP105.
Why Reimagine BMD?
The current standard of practice provided four approaches to showcase how to design a mix for BMD. The new standard of practice focuses on how to specify BMD mixtures allowing for more flexibility in how mixes are designed. Moving from four approaches to three tiers, as an agency moves up the tiers, it focuses more on mechanical tests and less on constituent and volumetric properties.
Meeting the Moment on Regulatory Issues
With common sense regulations, the industry can innovate and lead the way.
NAPA continues to monitor PFAS regulations. In September, under Court order, EPA recognized the inherent unfairness in potential liability associated with the unknowing capture and use of remnant PFAS in recycled and manufactured products, but let their 2024 rule stand with the idea the Agency would “continue to collect information on … costs and benefits” associated with passive receivership as they look toward other regulatory and statutory vehicles. Further, in EPA’s Sept 2025 Announcement, the Agency identified “[t]he best, most enduring solution to this issue is a statutory fix to protect passive receivers from liability, which EPA would follow to the letter of the law. EPA stands ready to provide technical assistance to Congress as requested on this issue.”
While a broad generic PFAS ‘passive receiver’ liability shield continues to be pursued in Congress, bipartisan passage of such legislation will be difficult. However, a framework for EPA’s identified statutory ‘fix’ already exists under the 1999 Superfund Recycling Equity Act (SREA) which exempts CERCLA liability for similarly-recycled materials like scrap tire rubber, scrap metals, paper and plastic, and others. Coupled with recent FAA-sponsored research conducted by the University of Florida, identifying that recycling PFAS-containing pavements are protective of the environment, NAPA is putting a full-press on the introduction of a stand-alone amendment to SREA.
PFAS - National Asphalt Pavement Association
Promoting Realistic, Science-Based Regulation with Research and Compliance
Over the decades, NAPA has continued to promote realistic EH&S regulation based on credible science. NAPA has always tried to work to find solutions to regulatory and compliance-related issues. One good example is when OSHA initiated its rulemaking process for the Silica Standard. Instead of adversity, NAPA welcomed a partnership with the Agency to find an appropriate solution. Fast forward and silica control systems are now part of common OEM milling machine equipment, ensuring seamless compliance with OSHA’s Silica Standard.
Asphalt Pavements and Urban Smog
In 2020, Yale University and co-investigator Carnegie Mellon University identified that in-service / in-place asphalt pavements may be / are a major contributor to urban smog. These findings were reiterated by EPA in subsequent publications with the other two universities.
In response, and in coalition with Asphalt Institute, Eurobitume, and European Asphalt Pavement Association, research was completed in early 2025. University of California – Riverside (UCR) identified that the asphalt pavement emissions factor/rate was approximately four orders of magnitude (1,000 times) lower than what was published by Yale. Given the importance of this work and potential political outfall due to contradicting highly respected academic institutionsd and EPA, UCR spent considerable time (re)proving-up and supporting their findings.
Asphalt Pavements and Urban Smog
In September 2025, UCR submitted its findings to ES&T, a preeminent journal that originally published Yale’s (and EPA’s) findings. Unfortunately, ES&T’s chief editor rejected UCR’s research findings publication submittal because it “wasn’t novel.”
UCR has now submitted their findings to a sister journal. We are confident the submitted research will be accepted by this or a similar journal. Once published, CARE will expend effort and resources to communicate these updated, valid, and credible results – that asphalt pavement is NOT a source of urban smog.