SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
sierra club
Congress Urged to 'Stand Up for Itself' as Trump Admin Halts EV Charger Program
"Freezing these EV charging funds is yet another one of the Trump administration's unsound and illegal moves," said one climate advocate.
Feb 07, 2025
Climate campaigners are blasting the Trump administration's move to halt a $5 billion initiative to build electric vehicle chargers along highways across the United States and calling on Congress to fight back against the attack on the grant program from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program was established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Natural Resources Defense Council's Beth Hammon said in a Friday statement that "on a bipartisan basis, Congress funded this program to build a new vehicle charging network nationwide. The Trump administration does not have the authority to halt it capriciously."
Hammon, a senior vehicle charging advocate at the group, warned that "stopping funding midstream will result in chaos and delays in states across the nation. It will throw state efforts into turmoil, wreak havoc with the companies that install the chargers, and risk the jobs of their workers. The only winner from this chaos is the oil industry."
"This should not stand. Courts have already blocked the Trump administration's other illegal attempts to halt legally mandated funding," she added. "Congress needs to stand up for itself: This move and many others from the Trump administration steals away its constitutionally established spending authority."
Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club's Clean Transportation for All campaign, similarly declared Friday that "freezing these EV charging funds is yet another one of the Trump administration's unsound and illegal moves. This is an attack on bipartisan funding that Congress approved years ago and is driving investment and innovation in every state, with Texas as the largest beneficiary."
"Throwing out states' plans, which were carefully built together with business, utilities, and communities, only hurts America's growing clean energy economy," she stressed. "The NEVI program has helped the U.S. build out the infrastructure needed to support our nation's necessary transition to pollution-free vehicles. More electric vehicle charging means better public health, reduced climate emissions, good-paying green jobs, and healthier communities."
President Donald Trump has taken various anti-climate actions since Inauguration Day—declaring a "national energy emergency," ditching the Paris agreement again, and enabling new liquefied natural gas exports. One executive order calls for "terminating the Green New Deal," and directs agencies to pause disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 law, specifically mentioning the NEVI program.
Trump targeted the initiative despite his ties to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, head of the president's destructive Department of Government Efficiency. Wiredreported that the billionaire's "electric automobile company has been a recipient of $31 million in awards from the NEVI program, according to a database maintained by transportation officials, accounting for 6% of the money awarded so far."
The Federal Highway Administration on Thursday sent a letter—first reported by InsideEVs—informing state transportation departments that "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," and, as a result, "is also immediately suspending the approval of all" state deployment plans previously greenlit by the Biden administration.
As Heatmapdetailed:
According to Paren, an EV charging data analytics firm that has been closely following the rollout of the NEVI program, states are legally entitled to spend roughly $3.27 billion on NEVI. That accounts for plans approved for fiscal years 2022 through 2025. To date, states have awarded about $615 million of the funds to just under 1,000 projects—with 10% of those projects being led by Tesla.
The letter says states will still be able to get reimbursed for expenses related to previously awarded projects, "in order to not disrupt current financial commitments." But the more than $2.6 billion that has not been awarded will be frozen.
The outlet noted that advocates expected Trump's attacks on the program won't survive legal challenges.
"This should be carefully scrutinized by states and the legal community," said Justin Balik, the senior state program director for Evergreen Action, "as it looks like an attempt to sabotage the program based on ideology that's dressed up in bureaucratic language about plan and guidance revisions."
Andrew Rogers, a former deputy administrator and chief counsel of the Federal Highway Administration, told Wired that "there is no legal basis for funds that have been apportioned to states to build projects being 'decertified' based on policy."
Paren chief analyst Loren McDonald also doesn't think that the Trump administration can legally suspend the program.
"I'm assuming the lawsuits from states will start soon, and this will go to court and Congress," McDonald toldPolitico. "But the Trump [administration] will succeed in just causing havoc and slowing things down for a while."
Already, Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Nebraska have put their NEVI programs on hold.
Whether Congress—particuarly Democrats, who are the minority party in both chambers—will fight back is unclear. Hill Heat's Brad Johnson pointed out on the social media platform Bluesky that two dozen members of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted with Republicans to confirm Trump's DOT chief, Sean Duffy.
After 24 Senate Democrats joined all GOP to confirm climate denier Sean Duffy as Transportation Secretary, he illegally called for the shut down of the National Electric Vehicle Charging Program, established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
[image or embed]
— Brad Johnson ( @climatebrad.hillheat.com) February 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
As Common Dreamsreported last month, right after Duffy was confirmed, the secretary directed DOT staff to immediately begin the process of rescinding or replacing former President Joe Biden's clean car pollution standards.
"These commonsense, popular fuel economy standards save drivers money at the pump and reduce dangerous pollution from vehicles," Sierra Club's García said at the time. "Sean Duffy is selling American families out to Big Oil, burdening us with higher fuel prices and more polluting gas-guzzlers that harm our health."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'A Disgrace': Trump Admin Targets Multiple Environmental Justice Offices
"Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors," said one environmentalist.
Feb 06, 2025
The Trump administration plans to place over 100 workers who are employed with the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on administrative leave, according to Wednesday reporting from The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources.
Other outlets have since reported on the development, including The Washington Post, which wrote Thursday that Trump appointees at the EPA told staff that they plan to close the office.
This move targeting the EPA, one the latest efforts by the Trump administration to drastically reshape federal agencies, was panned by multiple environmental organizations, who accused the White House of turning its back on vulnerable communities.
"The EPA's environmental justice office was created to challenge the historic pattern of pollution disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color," said Chitra Kumar, managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kumar was also formerly an official with the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
"Once again, the Trump administration is sidelining both science and the nation's most overburdened people," she added.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly working to "remake" the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, which defends the U.S. government's environmental actions in court and brings cases against individuals who violate federal environmental law. The Washington Post reported that Trump appointees at the Department of Justice said they plan to fire roughly 20 workers at the division, "among other actions that have sent morale there plummeting."
The Office of Environmental Justice within the division has already "been eliminated," and the five people working in that office have already been put on administrative leave, according to the outlet.
And in one of her first acts as U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi undid a Biden-era directive ordering the Department of Justice to emphasize enforcement of environmental laws in disadvantaged and low-income communities.
Trump administration attacks on what the White House deems "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility" (DEIA) initiatives were expected. On his first day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating the end of all federal DEI programs, goals, mandates, and plans. The order also specifically called for the termination, "to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and 'environmental justice' offices and positions."
"By shuttering these offices, Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors," said Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous in a Thursday statement. "Trump has been on the job for less than a month, but every single day he is making our communities less safe."
Like Kumar at the Union of Concerned Scientists, senior VP of environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council Matthew Tejada (also an alum of the EPA's environmental justice office) said that the country's most vulnerable communities would lose out.
"Shuttering the environmental justice office [at the EPA] will mean more toxic contaminants, dangerous air, and unsafe water in communities across the nation that have been most harmed by pollution in the past," said Tejada. "Trump EPA is turning its back on those who need a cleaner environment more than anyone. This is a disgrace."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Catastrophic Blow': GOP and Three Democrats Confirm Zeldin for EPA
"This dangerous agenda that Zeldin will oversee will roll back vital pollution limits that protect us, abandon clean energy investments, and lock the country into reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels," said one campaigner.
Jan 29, 2025
Climate and public health advocates were outraged on Wednesday after a trio of U.S. Senate Democrats
voted with Republicans to confirm President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.
Critics have warned that Zeldin—like other Cabinet nominees—will serve billionaire polluters, not the American people and the planet, since Trump named him in November. They renewed those warnings after Democratic Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), and Mark Kelly (Ariz.) voted with Republicans to confirm him as EPA administrator.
After Zeldin's confirmation, the youth-led Sunrise Movement called him "a disaster for our planet and a win for Big Oil."
Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt said in a statement that "Lee Zeldin's confirmation as EPA administrator is a catastrophic blow to the health of Americans, the climate, and the economy. Under Zeldin's leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency will no longer protect the American people and our communities—it will protect polluters."
Pointing to the new administrator's record and public statements, Alt said that "this dangerous agenda that Zeldin will oversee will roll back vital pollution limits that protect us, abandon clean energy investments, and lock the country into reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels that cost families at the gas pump."
"Americans didn't vote for dirtier air, more asthma attacks, or rising healthcare costs, yet that is exactly what Zeldin's EPA will deliver. Vulnerable communities, especially children, and seniors will bear the brunt of these policies, while a few fossil fuel executives rake in profits," she continued. "Zeldin's confirmation is a tragic failure for all Americans."
Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance, declared that "this is a make-or-break moment for clean water, and the American people deserve leadership that puts their needs above the influence of corporate polluters."
While praising Zeldin's past rejection of offshore oil drilling and support for "sensible policies" on "forever chemicals," Yaggi said that "his history of voting against critical infrastructure and environmental funding and opposing clean water and air protections raises serious concerns about his commitment to effectively leading the Environmental Protection Agency."
Moms Clean Air Force suggested a rebrand for the EPA under Zeldin and Trump: Extreme Pollution Agency.
Since returning to the White House just 10 days ago, Trump has already
taken various executive actions to attack the planet.
"The EPA's stated mission is to protect human health and the environment," Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said. "In the wake of Donald Trump's dangerous executive orders and illegal push to freeze all federal funding, the new EPA administrator will face a decision of whether to carry out the necessary duties of the role, or fold to Trump's deadly fossil fuel-backed agenda and broken promises."
"The American people want to breathe clean air and drink clean water," she stressed. "They want a healthy environment for their families today and the future generations of tomorrow. And they want to know that their government is doing everything in its power to protect them from the destructive impacts of the climate crisis that we sadly witness more and more of each day. That is now Lee Zeldin's charge, and we will do everything in our power to hold him accountable to the American people."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular