WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is providing $623 million in grants to states, local governments and tribes to help them build an electric vehicle charging network across the country. The grants announced Thursday will fund 47 electric vehicle charging stations and related projects in 22 states and Puerto Rico, including 7,500 electric vehicle charging ports, officials said.
Watch the briefing in the player above.
“America ushered in the automobile age, and now we have the opportunity to lead the world in the electric vehicle revolution, securing jobs, savings and benefits to Americans,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. The new funding “will help ensure electric vehicle chargers are accessible, reliable and convenient for American drivers, while creating jobs manufacturing, installing and maintaining chargers for American workers.”
Congress approved $7.5 billion in the Infrastructure Act of 2021 to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of building a national network of 500,000 publicly accessible chargers by 2030. Charging ports are a a key part of Biden’s efforts to encourage drivers to move away from gas-powered cars and trucks that contribute to global warming.
But progress on the network has been slow. Ohio and New York are the only states to have open charging stations under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program. Several other states, including Pennsylvania and Maine, have launched federally funded projects and are expected to open stations early this year. In total, 28 states, plus Puerto Rico, have either awarded contracts to build chargers or accepted bids to do so.
Since Biden took office in 2021, sales of electric vehicles have more than quadrupled and reached more than 1 million last year. The number of publicly accessible charging stations increased by nearly 70 percent to 168,426, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said.
That figure is about a third of the way to Biden’s goal, with six years remaining.
“We are on an accelerated trajectory to meet and exceed the president’s goal of reaching 500,000 chargers and building that national infrastructure,” Zaidi told reporters Wednesday.
Hours after the announcement, the Republican-controlled House approved a measure that would block a Biden administration policy that temporarily waives some domestic content requirements for federally funded electric vehicle chargers. Supporters said their vote would keep China out of the supply chain for electric vehicle chargers, a politically powerful idea supported by lawmakers in both parties.
“If we are going to spend $5 billion of taxpayer money to build electric vehicle charging stations in the United States, it should be made by Americans in America using American products,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who presented the project. resolution last year.
The Senate approved the measure by a vote of 50-48 in November, despite the threat of a veto from the White House. Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, as well as independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, joined Republicans in endorsing the measure. Sinema caucus with Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, voted against it.
The House approved the measure, 209-198, on Thursday, sending it to Biden.
Democrats called the resolution misguided, noting that the waiver expires July 1. The waiver was necessary to give U.S. manufacturers time to develop domestic content such as steel and iron used in magazines, they said.
Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the waiver “undermines U.S. investments and risks empowering foreign countries” like China.
“It is not better for the climate, because China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. And it’s certainly not better for American competitiveness or national security,” Graves said.
The debate highlights a challenge Biden faces between more clean energy and increased reliance on China, which dominates the electric vehicle battery market. Widespread availability of chargers is crucial to achieving another Biden administration goal: ensuring that electric vehicles represent half of all new car sales by 2030. In addition to cost, “range anxiety” related to a lack of available charging stations is a major barrier to purchasing an electric vehicle. About 80% of respondents cited concerns about a lack of charging stations as a reason for not purchasing an electric vehicle, according to an April survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Energy Policy Institute of the University of Chicago.
Seven in ten respondents said they would not buy an electric vehicle because charging takes too long and the battery technology is not ready.
Buttigieg and other administration officials have dismissed those concerns and said the future of car travel is electric.
“We are at a moment where the electric vehicle revolution is not happening. That’s really the case here,” Buttigieg told reporters. Electric vehicle sales now account for about 9% of all passenger vehicle sales, Buttigieg said — a sizable increase since Biden took office. He cited a new study showing that electric vehicles cost just 4% more than gasoline cars.
“There has been a truly remarkable drop in the prices consumers face for electric vehicles. And we believe we are quickly approaching the period where electric vehicles will be, on average, less expensive than internal combustion vehicles,” Buttigieg said.
The grants announced Thursday include $311 million for 36 “community” projects, including two Native American tribes in Alaska and Arizona. The projects will strengthen electric vehicle charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure in urban and rural communities, including high-traffic locations such as schools, parks, libraries and apartment buildings.
An additional $312 million in funding will be dedicated to 11 highway “corridors” along routes designated as alternative fuel corridors. The projects include $19.6 million for public charging stations in California’s Riverside County, between Los Angeles and Phoenix, on the I-10 corridor.
A polluted district in California’s San Joaquin Valley will receive $56 million to build two state-of-the-art truck charging sites in Taft and Gustine, California, to support two of the nation’s busiest freight corridors along from I-5.
About $70 million will go to the North Central Texas Council of Governments to build up to five hydrogen fueling stations for medium and heavy-duty cargo trucks in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.
