A federal judge has ruled the Trump Administration must resume distributing money to build EV chargers in 14 states, reported NPR. The decision comes after the administration had been sued over freezing the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) funds. The impacted states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a temporary pause in distributing the funds in February, saying that new guidance for applying for the funding would be published this spring. No new guidance has been published since February, leaving the funds paused.
“This is a case we’re watching closely, because many NACS members have participated in their states’ NEVI funding opportunities and made up-front investments based on how the program then existed,” said NACS Deputy General Counsel Matt Durand. “In the meantime, we’ll continue working cooperatively with the Administration and Congress on opportunities to improve how NEVI is administered going forward.”
“The court order is a preliminary injunction, not a final decision in the case itself. The judge also added a seven-day pause before it goes into effect, to allow the administration time to appeal the decision. After seven days, if no appeal has been filed, the DOT would have to stop withholding funds from the NEVI program and distribute them to the 14 states,” wrote the outlet.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is co-leading the suit, said in a statement he was pleased with the order, while the Sierra Club called it "only a first step" toward the full restoration of the funds.
In a statement emailed to NPR, the DOT wrote: "While we [assess] our legal options, the order does not stop our ongoing work to reform the program, so it actually works for the American people, which continues apace.”
“Crucially, the money Congress allocated to the NEVI program is not grant money that has to be competed for and won, which would give the executive branch discretion over whether it’s awarded or not. Instead, it’s what’s called ‘formula funding,’ which means that Congress allocated it to states based on a calculation. Each state gets a certain percentage of the total pool, as long as they follow the required steps, including making detailed plans for where they’d put chargers and how,” reported NPR.
In February when the funding was frozen, NACS sent a letter to Congress members noting that NACS’ members expended significant time and resources in reliance on the established NEVI frameworks, which in some cases require them to meet several years of post-construction milestones before their eligible expenses are fully reimbursed.
"Regardless of the future of NEVI overall, these businesses acted in good faith under the law as it then existed, and Congress should at least make provisions to keep them whole,” NACS argued in the letter.