On September 15, 2026, the US House of Representatives passed a bill requiring every new car sold in the country to come with an AM receiver as standard equipment. The quick take is "AM was saved in the car." I think the text guarantees less than the headline: a receiver on the dashboard, a long timeline, and a definition of "digital AM" narrower than it looks. It does not guarantee a listener.
What passed
The bill is H.R. 979, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2025, sponsored by Representative Gus Bilirakis of Florida. It has been moving since February 2025, gathered 317 cosponsors, and passed on September 15, 2026 by voice vote, with no recorded roll call. It now goes to the Senate, where a companion bill exists, S. 315, from Senator Ed Markey, which cleared the Commerce Committee in April 2025.
It does not apply tomorrow
The text as passed by the House gives the Department of Transportation one year to write the rule, and the rule takes effect at most two years after it is published. Small manufacturers, the ones that sold 40,000 or fewer passenger vehicles in the US in 2022, get at least four years.
Until then, anyone selling a car without AM must put a clear and conspicuous label on it saying the vehicle has no receiver, and cannot charge extra for that.
What the "digital AM" definition leaves out
An automaker can comply with a receiver that picks up "digital audio AM broadcast stations." The definition is in section 2, paragraph 8: an AM station using an In Band On Channel system, meaning HD Radio, as defined in the FCC rule 47 CFR 73.402. In that system the digital signal goes out on the same channel as the analog one, so the receiver is a hybrid and still delivers analog AM.
The same definition says, in paragraph 8(B), that a "digital audio AM broadcast station" does not include the all-digital AM station, the one that transmits only digital subcarriers plus the unmodulated carrier. In practice, a US station that moves from hybrid AM to all-digital mode steps off the path the law gives the automaker.
The definition of "AM broadcast station," in paragraph 3 of section 2, is a station licensed by the FCC on a channel in the 535 to 1705 kHz band. The word "analog" never appears in the bill. The guarantee was written around the channel and the license, not the type of modulation.
Supporters argue emergency alerts
Backers talk less about music and more about IPAWS, the US public warning system, which uses AM stations. The text orders the GAO, Congress's oversight office, to study how emergency alerts are disseminated, assess the role of vehicles in that system, and say whether other alert technologies reach at least 90% of the US population in a crisis, including at night (paragraph 3(g)). It also orders the GAO to consult broadcasters (paragraph 3(g)(3)(H)) and requires a report on safety impacts for automated-driving vehicles that receive AM.
Separately, the FCC is working on software-based EAS. On September 29, 49 state broadcasters associations asked that it stay voluntary during the transition. The NAB had commented earlier, and Sage Alerting Systems was cited, according to Radio World.
A receiver on the dashboard is not a listener
The car dashboard has become the phone. The driver asks for a playlist and the car pulls it from the phone over Bluetooth, CarPlay or Android Auto. Radio is now one source on a list, next to podcasts and streaming. The law guarantees AM will be on that list in a new car. It does not decide whether anyone will pick it.
That is why I disagree with both lines. "Radio is dying" ignores that the House passed, by voice vote, a fixed place for AM on the dashboard. "The House saved AM" ignores that being on the dashboard is not an audience.
If you run a radio station
Anyone with an AM station in the United States has two concrete issues. The first is the definition of "digital": if you are thinking about moving to all-digital mode, read paragraph 8(B) first. The second is the GAO study, which will consult broadcasters. Coverage, power and a documented alert history are what you would bring to that conversation.
Outside the US, the law does not apply. In other countries, the debate over AM in the car still has no comparable timeline.