Major Environmental Organizations Sue Trump Administration Over Hold on Billions for Electric Vehicle Charging

Seattle, WA —

With the prospect of people across the country losing out on the benefits from cleaner transportation, today, Earthjustice, Sierra Club, Climate Solutions, and NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) filed a new challenge to the Trump administration’s hold on $2.5 billion in federal funding through the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program. 

The federal government had awarded more than 140 charging grants totaling nearly $1.8 billion to local and state agencies and tribes to fund crucial community charging and transportation corridor projects. However, the Trump administration froze the vast majority of these funds, meaning neither funds under those grants nor new grants have been moving forward. As a result, the transportation projects across the country promised by this program are in jeopardy, and more people will be harmed by pollution from extracting, transporting and burning gasoline to power vehicles with internal combustion engines.

These charging grants have a particular emphasis on reducing emissions from the transportation sector, a big source of air pollution. In addition to contributing to the climate crisis, pollution from burning fossil fuels to power vehicles creates major public health threats for millions of Americans and especially dangerous for marginalized communities across the nation that often live next to major freight corridors due to the history of redlining. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are harmed by vehicle pollution every year.

The group’s lawsuit follows a lawsuit filed earlier today by 16 states and the District of Columbia in federal court for the Western District of Washington. Led by California, Colorado, and Washington, other states filing include Arizona, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

Quotes from representatives of filing organizations

“People want and deserve access to reliable electric vehicle charging, and it’s egregious that the administration is taking us backwards. The impacts of the Trump administration’s reckless decision to freeze funds already allocated by Congress are stark. Without dollars flowing to modernize our infrastructure, Americans will continue to live with polluted air and an outdated system stuck in the early 2000s,” said Marvin C. Brown IV, senior attorney at Earthjustice.

“We’re suing to unlock clean energy infrastructure funds that have been promised to communities for cleaner vehicles, cleaner air, and good jobs. If this Congress-approved money isn’t used, it disappears—exactly what the Trump administration is hoping will happen. We won’t let the Trump administration sit on it any longer,” said Sierra Club Senior Attorney Zachary Fabish.

“This program will cut emissions, improve mobility, and expand charging access, especially in the communities that need it most. This unlawful freeze has stalled projects that local governments and tribes have already planned for and invested in. The longer it goes on, the more projects that are at risk. The administration must end this unlawful hold and release the funds that Congress mandated on a bipartisan basis,” said Beth Hammon, a senior advocate at NRDC.

“Washington drivers want clean, fast and affordable ways to get around. This funding being unlawfully blocked by the Trump administration should be helping power up and connect rural communities across our state from Mount Vernon and Port Angeles to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. Threatening the funding for these promised projects is an attempt to delay Washington’s progress while we are stuck paying the price through higher costs and more pollution,” said James Hove, Washington Director at Climate Solutions.

Additional background

The CFI program was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which appropriated $2.5 billion for the program over five years. It represents one of two major federal funding programs for critical electric vehicle charging infrastructure, the other being the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.

In May, our organizations (alongside others) filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful freeze of the NEVI program, a transformative, $5 billion national initiative to build electric vehicle charging stations along major highway corridors and to enable long-distance EV travel across the country. 

In that lawsuit, a federal judge issued a preliminary order directing the federal government to release NEVI funding, and the Trump administration responded by beginning to restart the program in August.