Fight over EV infrastructure funds looms

Dania Maxwell/Bloomberg

A dispute over the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, one of the most costly and high-profile programs in former President Joe Biden's 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is brewing on Capitol Hill as Republicans seek to halt or claw back federal dollars and Democrats call the move illegal.

Missouri Republican Rep. Eric Burlison last week introduced House Resolution 1052 , a measure that would "rescind certain unobligated balances relating to charging and fueling grants and national electric vehicle grants." The full text of the bill, which has 18 Republican co-sponsors, is not yet available.

The bill follows the U.S. Department of Transportation's Feb. 6 letter to states announcing it would halt all formula funding while it reviews NEVI guidance. Democrats call the pause illegal and part of a "larger, ongoing pattern by the Trump Administration of subverting the Constitution's delegation to Congress of authority over federal spending."

The NEVI program featured $5 billion of formula funds to states and $2.5 billion of discretionary grants to build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2030. It was one of Biden's top priorities, but the program faced struggles getting off the ground, and Trump repeatedly criticized the program while on the campaign trail.

The government has reportedly allocated $3.3 billion of NEVI funds to the states. As of last November, however, there were only 31 NEVI stations in nine states, according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation.

In its Feb. 6 letter to state transportation departments announcing it would halt all spending, the Federal Highways Administration said the pause would allow the agency to review the program to ensure it conforms with the new administration's priorities and would require states to resubmit their plans to build the charging stations. States would still receive reimbursements for "existing obligations" to design and build stations "in order to not disrupt current financial commitments," the letter said.

The FHWA aims to have updated draft NEVI formula guidance rules published for public comment in the spring and follow that with updated final formula guidance, it said in the letter.

Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works sent a Feb. 11 letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy protesting the move. All 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico invested "time and resources" to develop their plans for the charging stations, as required under the program, and the "abrupt cutoff of NEVI funding disregards these efforts and subjects states and their partners to delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic red tape," the Democrats said.

They asked Duffy to respond with the department's legal authority to cut off the funds, detail where the order to halt the program came from, and provide copies of all emails from November through February about the NEVI program from the Trump administration, Elon Musk "anyone working for or affiliated with the so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency,'" and OMB Director Russell Vought and others.

Elsewhere in EV developments, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, last week re-introduced the Fair Sharing of Highways and Roads for Electric Vehicles Act that would require that EVs pay into the Highway Trust Fund. The bill would impose a one-time fee of $1,000 on all-electric vehicles at the manufacturer level, at the point of sale. The money would be appropriated to the HTF.

The solvency of the chronically struggling HTF is expected to be an issue as lawmakers tackle the next surface transportation bill ahead of the IIJA's expiration in October 2026.

The bill is supported by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, Associated General Contractors of America, National Association of Counties, and National League of Cities.