President Donald Trump’s administration halted the $5 billion Biden electric vehicle charging program, which has been criticized for its poor production of charging stations.
Emily Biondi, the associate administrator for the Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty, in a letter to the state Department of Transportation directors on Thursday, said the administration has suspended the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.
“The new leadership of the Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) has decided to review the policies underlying the implementation of the NEVI Formula Program. Accordingly, the current NEVI Formula Program Guidance dated June 11, 2024, and all prior versions of this guidance are rescinded,” Biondi wrote.
“As result of the rescission of the NEVI Formula Program Guidance, FHWA is also immediately suspending the approval of all State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plans for all fiscal years. Therefore, effective immediately, no new obligations may occur under the NEVI Formula Program until the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance is issued and new State plans are submitted and approved,” the official continued.
Lawmakers included the $5 billion program in the $1.2 trillion so-called infrastructure bill, more formally known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The program had aimed to create more than 6,000 charging stations and has served as an embarrassment for then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
In September 2023, Buttigieg admitted he had trouble finding an electric charging station while he was traveling on the road.
In August 2024, then-President Joe Biden claimed the administration had built 500,000 charging stations across the country, where, in reality, they had built only eight stations as of May 2024.
In May, Buttigieg was asked by CBS News’s Face the Nation to explain why only eight of the promised EV stations had been built:
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
