The money behind the kill switch: NHTSA has sent $91.7 million to one auto-industry nonprofit

WASHINGTON — Federal spending records show that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has obligated $91,687,500 to one recipient for research into the vehicle impairment-detection technology at the center of the so-called “kill switch” debate: the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Leesburg, Virginia, whose members are 15 automakers. The same companies that fund the nonprofit will be required by federal rule to install the technology it is developing.

Two cooperative agreements, one recipient

Public data from USAspending.gov shows the money flowing through two back-to-back NHTSA cooperative agreements with the coalition, known as ACTS. Award DTNH2213H00433 obligated $46,687,500 between March 2014 and September 2023 for “advanced alcohol detection technology.” Its successor, award 693JJ92350015, obligated another $45,000,000 in February 2023 and runs through February 2028 under the description “cooperative agreement for driver alcohol detection system for safety program.” Together the two awards total $91,687,500 across 22 transactions. The coalition, headquartered at 900 Sycolin Road SE in Leesburg, administers the work under the banner of the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety program, better known as DADSS. The 2013 Department of Transportation announcement renewing the cooperative agreement describes ACTS as “comprised of 15 automakers.”

What Section 24220 actually says

The statute the money is associated with contains no funding language at all. Section 24220 of Public Law 117-58, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is a pure rulemaking mandate. It directs the Secretary of Transportation, acting through NHTSA, to “issue a final rule prescribing a Federal motor vehicle safety standard” that requires new passenger vehicles to be equipped with “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology.” Congress defined that technology as a system that “can passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired” and “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected.” The statutory deadline was three years from enactment, November 15, 2024. DADSS itself long predates the statute. NHTSA began the program in 2008 under a cooperative agreement authorized by prior highway legislation, 13 years before the infrastructure law was signed.

NHTSA missed the deadline

The November 2024 deadline came and went with no final rule. In its December 2024 Rulemaking Status Report to Congress, NHTSA told lawmakers only that “NHTSA has an ongoing rulemaking” and that the agency “is reviewing the more than 18,000 comments received to the docket and continuing extensive research of available technologies that can meet the requirements of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act.” The only action on the record remains an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published January 5, 2024 at 89 FR 830, under docket RIN 2127-AM50. No Notice of Proposed Rulemaking has followed. In that same ANPRM, NHTSA acknowledged that after more than a decade of federally funded research the hardware still does not meet the statutory test. The agency wrote that “the current DADSS breath sensor requires directed puff of breath toward the sensor and would therefore not be considered passive under BIL.” NHTSA separately told Congress that “the technology has not yet been implemented on production vehicles offered for sale to the public.” Subsection (e) of Section 24220 allows the agency to claim an extension of up to three additional years, pushing the backstop to November 15, 2027.

The Massie defund vote

The political fight is not theoretical. On January 22, 2026, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky offered H.Amdt.155 to H.R.7148, an amendment that would have barred the use of any funds in the appropriations bill to implement Section 24220 “including any requirements enabling or supporting vehicle ‘kill switch’ technology.” The amendment failed on the House floor. It was Representative Massie’s second attempt. His first, H.Amdt.641 to H.R.4820, also failed on November 7, 2023 on a recorded vote of 201 to 229, according to the House Clerk’s roll call records. The January 2026 vote means the current House majority has now twice declined to pull implementation funding, even as the statutory deadline has lapsed and NHTSA has conceded the technology is not ready.

The Kim Monson Show segment

Automotive journalist Lauren Fix of Car Coach Reports raised the issue on the April 15, 2026 broadcast of The Kim Monson Show, pressing the follow-the-money angle. “The money flows through NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, via grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements with universities and nonprofit groups,” Fix told Monson. She pointed listeners to the nonprofit intermediary structure: “It does not go directly to automakers to install these systems in cars. It’s going to be run through research groups.” Fix cited a cumulative DADSS federal total of “over $100 million,” a figure close to the $91.7 million USAspending total but not identical to it. She named Representative Massie first among the lawmakers she said had tried to unfund the program, and also cited Representative Byron Donalds and a “representative out of Pennsylvania,” an apparent reference to Rep. Scott Perry, adding that “everyone has tried.”

What it means

The structural conflict is on the face of the contract. Federal taxpayers pay NHTSA. NHTSA pays the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety. ACTS is funded and governed by the automakers. The same automakers are the regulated parties under the rule NHTSA is still writing. The program is structured as a public-private partnership: the 2013 Department of Transportation announcement extending the cooperative agreement stated that “NHTSA and ACTS are contributing a combined total of $6,539,400” during the first year of the extension, indicating industry matching contributions on top of the federal total. With the first statutory deadline missed and the extension clock running toward November 2027, the next political marker will be whether the House revisits the Massie language in the next appropriations cycle.