Democrats Are Lying Again
The Dems' Main Narrative for the Schumer Shutdown Is Falling Apart
CNN's Van Jones Reveals What Schumer Told Him Three Months Ago About Shutting...
AG Bondi to Appeal 'Woefully Insufficient' Sentence for Justice Kavanaugh's Would-be Assas...
No, NYT, We Don't Need to Feel Bad for These People
Scott Wiener: Accusations of Fascism Will Continue Until Conservatives Bend the Knee to...
Colorado Authorities Reopen Investigation Into Death of Hunter S. Thompson
Maxwell House Coffee’s Temporary Rebrand Is Something Else
Dirty Hospitals Are to Blame for Superbug Deaths
Hope Amid Chaos in Nigeria
The Train of Progress Must Not Be Derailed
Trump Ends the Green Scam — Now the Crying Caucus Is Out of...
Make Protecting Animals Great Again: The Trump Administration Is Ending Animal Cruelty
Hochu v. Mamdani: The Upcoming War Over NYC Tax Increases
More Government Control Over College Sports Is the Wrong Fix
Tipsheet

There's Just One Problem With That $7.5 Billion Congress Spent for EV Chargers

AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

President Biden wants at least 50 percent of new vehicle sales by 2030 to be electric, but doing so requires significant investment in the infrastructure required to make that happen. To this end, Congress in 2021 spent $7.5 billion to invest in EV charging stations across the country through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. 

Advertisement

There’s just one problem, however. After two years, Biden's goal of "building a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers along America’s highways and in our communities," has gone nowhere, as not a single charger has been installed.

States and the charger industry blame the delays mostly on the labyrinth of new contracting and performance requirements they have to navigate to receive federal funds. While federal officials have authorized more than $2 billion of the funds to be sent to states, fewer than half of states have even started to take bids from contractors to build the chargers — let alone begin construction.

Consumer demand for electric vehicles is rising in the United States, necessitating six times as many chargers on its roads by the end of the decade, according to federal estimates. But not a single charger funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law has come online and odds are they will not be able to start powering Americans’ vehicles until at least 2024.

Getting chargers up and running across the country is essential to reaching President Joe Biden’s goal of having half the vehicles sold in the United States be electric by the end of the decade — a key cog of his climate agenda. Americans consistently say the lack of charging infrastructure is one of the top reasons they won’t buy an electric car. (Politico)

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates the U.S. will need about 1.2 million public chargers by 2030 to meet demand. According to the Energy Department, there are only about 180,000 chargers today.  

Advertisement

An unnamed Biden official said the slow rollout is not surprising given the administration's desire to build a “convenient, affordable, reliable, made-in-America equitable network.”

“Anybody can throw a charger in the ground — that’s not that hard, it doesn’t take that long,” the official told Politico. “Building a network is different.”

GOP senators reacted to the news, blasting Biden's green agenda. 


Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement