Biden pushes through $635M in EV charger grants before Trump’s return

The Biden administration awarded $635 million in EV charger grants just 10 days before Donald Trump takes office, leaving just $700,000 of the $2.5 billion from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law unallocated.

The grants from Biden’s zero-emission refueling infrastructure programs will fund 49 projects that will deploy more than 11,500 EV charging ports and alternative fuel infrastructure along corridors and in communities across 27 states, four federally recognized tribes, and the District of Columbia.

$368 million will be allocated for 42 projects that expand EV charging infrastructure within communities across the US, while $268 million will go toward seven projects that build out the national fast charging network along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors.

The grants, which were announced on Friday, are made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program and a 10% set-aside from the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement, “These investments will help states and communities build out a network of EV chargers in the coming years so that one day, finding a charge on a road trip will be as easy as filling up at a gas station.”

There are currently nearly 70,000 public EV charging stations across the US, with over 197,000 charging ports, according to the DOE’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. The Biden administration set a goal of building out 500,000 publicly available EV chargers by 2030.

Since the election, the Biden administration has been rushing to distribute clean energy funding in response to Trump’s threats to claw it back. Once the funds are allocated, reclaiming them will be nearly impossible.

Read more: Wisconsin’s first 3 NEVI-funded EV fast charging stations are open

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