Trump Admin Freezes Giant NEVI Charging Program — But Can It?

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The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) charging program is a major EV program created as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress passed in 2022 when Joe Biden was president and Democrats controlled Congress. It includes $5 billion in grants to roll out more EV charging infrastructure all across the US.

Naturally, Donald Trump is heavily against electric vehicles. Why? Who knows? He’s just generally all for pollution, fossil fuels, and “how things used to be.” And, of course, he’s against anything Biden and Democrats accomplished while president. So, he has talked badly about the NEVI program multiple times. “President Trump has long decried the program and regularly ‌

lied about the specifics during the 2024 campaign,” Engadget notes.

Now, Trump has put a freeze on the entire NEVI program. The memo, from the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, is as follows:

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State Department of Transportation Directors

Subject: Suspending Approval of State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment Plans

Dear State Department of Transportation Directors:

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) administers several grant programs under which the applicable statutes require the Secretary to apportion grant funds to States under a prescribed statutory formula. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program is one such program. Most statutory formula programs require the Secretary to make the prescribed apportionments to the States on a specific date and then make the funds available for obligation. See, e.g., 23 U.S.C. 104. The NEVI Formula Program, however, is unique in that this Program requires the Secretary to approve a plan for each State describing how the State intends to use its NEVI funds. The State plans are to be developed in accordance with guidance the Secretary provides on how States are to strategically deploy the electric vehicle (EV) charging network. The NEVI Formula Program requires the Secretary to approve each State’s plan prior to the obligation of NEVI Formula Program funds for each fiscal year.

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. The FHWA is updating the NEVI Formula Program Guidance to align with current U.S. DOT policy and priorities, including those set forth in DOT Order 2100.7, titled “Ensuring Reliance Upon Sound Economic Analysis in Department of Transportation Policies, Programs, and Activities.” The FHWA aims to have updated draft NEVI Formula Guidance published for public comment in the spring. After the public comment period has closed, FHWA will publish updated final NEVI Formula Guidance that responds to the comments received.

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. Instructions for the submission of new State plans for all fiscal years will be included in the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance. Since FHWA is suspending the existing State plans, States will be held harmless for not implementing their existing plans. Until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments.

If you have any questions, please contact Gary Jensen, Director of the Office of Natural Environment at Gary.Jensen@dot.gov or 202-366-2048

Sincerely,

Emily Biondi

Associate Administrator

Office of Planning, Environment and Realty

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Sounds good, right?

Of course not. But this is where we are.

Importantly, nearly 1,000 EV charging stations have been approved and set into motion to some degree, but only about 50 are open so far. One would hope that the Trump admin is not going to destroy the work that’s already been put into this.

Of course, with Elon Musk’s Tesla owning the Supercharger network and Musk being the shadow president, one does not need to worry at all about conflicts of interest and non-Tesla charging stations being crippled. Musk and Trump would never sabotage alternatives, right?

During the Biden administration, Tesla did get $41 million in federal grants for 99 NEVI sites it was selected to develop.

As with many things Trump and Musk have been doing, it’s questionable whether freezing this program in its tracks is legal. “Can an organization like the FHA unilaterally put the kibosh on a program that was approved by Congress? The legality here is unclear, but Loren McDonald, chief analyst at the ‌EV charging analytics firm Paren, said ‘I don’t believe FHWA has the authority to do this,'” Engadget adds. Trump and Musk don’t care at all, but if someone brings a lawsuit, a judge could put an end to the freeze. Judges have been responding in such a way to other moves by the Trump admin and Musk’s “DOGE” crew.

“I’m assuming the lawsuits from states will start soon, and this will go to court and Congress,” McDonald adds. “But the Trump administration will succeed in just causing havoc and slowing things down for a while.”

On that note, Green Car Reports writes, “Although it picked up speed last spring, NEVI-funded project rollout has been slow because states submitting plans must also deal with individual regulators, utilities, and other bureaucracies. Now that they have to submit new plans, all over again, it’s a major setback for the buildout—many months, if not years—even if the money isn’t actually taken away.”

Of course, just as the Trump admin is plowing down doors without concern for whether they can, there’s also an argument that states can just keep going forward with their plans and can ignore the FHWA. “Ryan Gallentine, managing director at the national business association Advanced Energy United, said that states ‘are under no obligation to stop these projects based solely on this announcement.'” They can just keep proceeding as planned until new guidance is actually created and changes something, Gallentine argues. Seems logical to me.

Some people try to claim that there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Such claims boggle the mind. There are trillions of dollars in difference between what Republicans and Democrats do when in power. And the differences have only grown more extreme. Republican presidents never shut down the United States’ giant USAID humanitarian aid agency (and, really, cannot legally do so), yet that’s what Trump and Musk have tried to do already. In case you are not very aware of what USAID is or does, here’s a short summary from Wikipedia:

“The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. Statute law also places USAID under “the direct authority and policy guidance of the Secretary of State“.^[4] With a budget of over $40 billion,^[4] USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance – the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms. USAID has missions in over 100 countries, primarily in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Critics have accused USAID of being a tool for US interventionism.^[5][6]”

Who would honestly think it’s good to try to close USAID?

The NEVI freeze is not as extreme as that, for sure, but it’s again a sign of the extreme measures the Trump administration is taking.