When Congress moved last week to slash federal funding for electric vehicle charging stations, the cuts fell hardest on red states.
That’s unexpected, considering President Donald Trump’s efforts to throttle federal funding to blue, Democratic states. But it’s also in line with Congress’ goal of rechanneling money that has been sitting idle.
Last week’s $1.2 trillion spending package — which included the Department of Transportation bill — has increases for highways. More than $800 million of that increase comes from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, a $5 billion Biden-era effort to build powerful EV chargers along highways.
The legislation adopted a “use it or lose it” approach for $503 million of those cuts, which were meant to be spent by individual states.
