Biden's $7.5 Billion for EV Charging Stations Results in Zero Built in Two Years Despite Spending
President Joe Biden has spent his entire term pushing electric vehicles as a way to end our reliance on fossil fuels with billions of tax dollars spent to achieve the Democrat’s dream. However, a new report finds that thus far one of his programs has failed to live up to its promises despite its multibillion-dollar budget.
In 2021, the Biden administration pushed a $7.5 billion investment in the electric vehicle charging infrastructure and aimed to build thousands of charging stations to allow Americans to use EVs more easily for their daily transportation. Congress quickly followed through, and the measure was added to Biden’s infrastructure bill.
The funding was supposed to consist of $5 billion for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program and another $2.5 billion for the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant program, according to The Epoch Times.
But two years later, after the budget was passed and the money allocated, not a single charging station has been erected, Politico reported on Tuesday.
Even though the federal government has allocated more than $2 billion to states to begin construction of a network of new charging stations, not only has no construction begun, not a single state has even secured a working contract for said construction, the report said.
No new stations have been built, and there won’t be any at least until 2024, according to Politico.
That didn’t stop the White House from boasting about its efforts in a Nov. 9 “fact sheet” marking the two-year anniversary of the infrastructure law.
“To date, almost $2.4 billion in funding has gone to states, and construction is underway to build out a network of chargers along our highways,” it said.
The Biden administration has maintained that half the vehicles sold in America will have to be EVs by 2030, but that goal will be difficult to achieve if drivers lack a reliable and extensive charging network across the country to keep their EVs on the road.
Politico reported there are about 180,000 charging stations dotted across the U.S. today, but at least 1.2 million are needed to support a nation of majority EV users.
Administration officials have waived off the criticism, saying the lack of progress is to be expected considering that a whole new system of transportation has to be planned, approved and built from the ground up.
“You have to go slow to go fast,” Gabe Klein, Biden’s executive director of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, told Politico. “These are things that take a little bit of time, but boy, when you’re done, it’s going to completely change the game.”
Still, Aatish Patel, president of charger manufacturer XCharge North America, said the stalled progress on building charging stations is stymieing the effort to persuade car buyers to go electric.
“As an EV driver, a charger being installed in two years isn’t really going to help me out now. We’re in dire need of chargers here,” Patel told Politico.
Republicans are eyeing the billions of dollars being funneled to Biden’s EV climate agenda, and many hope to claw back that money for other uses and to scuttle the entire plan for a federally funded charging network.
Good. It’s not the place of government to provide charging stations, that is a free market responsibility.
Now stop wasting tax dollars on this garbage.
— Son of Galt (@UltraMagaJoe3) December 5, 2023
Opponents of Biden’s plans also have blasted the administration’s lack of progress despite the billions thrown at it.
Former President Donald Trump took a swipe at EVs this year.
“The happiest moment for someone in an electric car is the first 10 minutes. The unhappiest part is the next hour because you’re petrified that you’re not going to be able to find another charger,” the GOP front-runner in the 2024 presidential race said in August as he criticized Biden’s push for electric vehicles.
Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman hammered Biden’s charging station construction plan in a speech on the House floor, saying, “Not only is such an endeavor not the federal government’s responsibility, this program doesn’t work, won’t work and will end up wasting massive amounts of federal money.”
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, a leading cheerleader for Biden’s EV goals, recently admitted that the lack of a charging infrastructure is hampering the administration’s push to force Americans into electric vehicles.
Buttigieg’s admission came as part of his comments announcing the spending of $100 million in federal money to repair existing charging stations administered by his department to “improve EV charger reliability.”
“This is about making sure that access to charging is as reliable as access to fuel is today for gas cars, and we know that that’s not just a question of quantity but also one of quality,” Buttigieg told The Wall Street Journal in September.
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