Democrats controlled Congress during Joe Biden’s first two years as president and passed spending bills worth trillions of dollars to enact a green energy agenda that included the construction of a network of 500,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.
But more than two years later, not a single EV charging station has been built, despite legislation earmarking $7.5 billion for the effort.
According to Fox News, eight stations are currently under construction, but they are not yet completed, and the measure called for a network of hundreds of thousands.
“Overall, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) earmarked $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers — $5 billion for the so-called National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and another $2.5 billion in discretionary funds for charging and fueling infrastructure — as part of the federal government’s ambitious effort to expand EV ownership and reduce carbon emissions,” the outlet reported on Wednesday.
“However, just $101.5 million has been distributed for seven state NEVI awards and just two projects, located in Columbus, Ohio, and Pittston, Pennsylvania, have begun construction, according to the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation which was established by the IIJA,” Fox News noted, adding that, at the current pace, just a handful of projects will be completed by the end of the five-year projection window, and at a cost of around $250 million.
Daren Bakst, the director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, told Fox News Digital: “Too many members of Congress think ‘Field of Dreams’ is a blueprint for infrastructure; build it, and they will come. No, they won’t come. Because Americans didn’t want EVs when this wasteful spending was passed, and they don’t want them now, even with all the massive subsidies and incentives to buy EVs.”
The expert added that thousands of new car dealers from all brands have been warning Biden of the waning interest in EVs while automakers are reevaluating their EV strategies. In a letter to Biden late last month, some 3,000 dealers around the country said they were opposed to his EV mandate, writing that “enthusiasm has stalled” for the vehicles and their lots of crammed EVs that aren’t selling.
Bakst then called on Congress to defund the NEVI program to save taxpayers billions.
“Market realities influence the states that play a central role in whether EV chargers will be built,” Bakst continued. “Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that no EV chargers have been built using the $7.5 billion. States don’t want to waste time and money on building EV chargers that will fail.
“The lack of demand for EVs is part of the equation, but so too are the technological shortcomings of EVs and the rural nature of many states,” he added. “Then there’s also the Biden administration imposing inflexible and stringent federal requirements, something that states have said will cause problems in implementing the NEVI program. As it is, more than half of the states have not even started soliciting bids for EV chargers.”
As per the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, the announcement of the seven public conditional NEVI awards was made in Ohio, Hawaii, Maine, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Alaska, and Kentucky. Additionally, 17 states are currently in the process of seeking additional proposals and applications for future EV charging station projects, a procedure that may extend over several months or even years, Fox News Digital added.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and D.C. have received historic funding to advance, for the first time in the nation’s history, the buildout of a convenient and reliable national charging network,” a Joint Office spokesperson claimed to the outlet.
“Since the President took office there has been a 70% increase in charging ports now in place, and as states move quickly and deliberately to energize even more EV chargers stamped Made-in-the-USA, Americans can be confident that we are on track to meet our ambitious goals,” the spokesperson added.
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