Feds award $623M to build more EV stations
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is awarding $623 million in grants to states, local governments and tribes to help build an electric vehicle charging network across the nation. Grants announced Thursday will fund 47 EV charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 EV charging ports, officials said.
“America led the arrival of the automotive era, and now we have a chance to lead the world in the EV revolution — securing jobs, savings and benefits for Americans in the process,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. The new funding “will help ensure that EV chargers are accessible, reliable and convenient for American drivers, while creating jobs in charger manufacturing, installation and maintenance for American workers.”
Congress approved $7.5 billion in the 2021 infrastructure law to meet President Joe Biden’s goal to build a national network of 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030. The charging ports are a key part of Biden’s effort to encourage drivers to move away from gasoline-powered cars and trucks that contribute to global warming.
But progress on the network has been slow. Ohio and New York are the only states that have opened charging stations under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.
Several other states, including Pennsylvania and Maine, have broken ground on federally funded projects and are expected to open stations early this year. Twenty-eight states, plus Puerto Rico, have either awarded contracts to build chargers or have accepted bids to do so.
Since Biden took office in 2021, EV sales have more than quadrupled and reached more than 1 million last year. The number of publicly available charging ports has grown by nearly 70% to 168,426, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said.
That number is about one-third of the way to Biden’s goal, with six years remaining.
“We are on an accelerating trajectory to meet and exceed the president’s goal to hit 500,000 chargers and build that nationwide backbone,’’ Zaidi told reporters Wednesday.
Hours after the announcement, the Republican-controlled House approved a measure 209-198 that would block a Biden administration policy that temporarily waives some domestic content requirements for federally funded EV chargers. Supporters said their vote would keep China out of the supply chain for EV chargers, a politically potent idea that is supported by lawmakers in both parties.
The Senate approved the measure, 50-48, in November, despite a veto threat from the White House. Democrats Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, along with independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, joined Republicans to approve the measure. Sinema caucuses with Democrats. Rand Paul, R-kentucky, voted against.
Democrats called the resolution misguided, noting that the waiver expires July 1. The waiver was needed to give American manufacturers time to develop domestic content, such as steel and iron, used in chargers, they said.
GOP Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the waiver “undercuts American investments and risks empowering foreign nations’’ such as China.
“It’s not better for the climate, as China is the number one emitter of greenhouse gases around the world. And it’s certainly not better for American competitiveness or national security,’’ Graves said.