Latest news with #BipartisanInfrastructureAct
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program funding freeze will exacerbate charging deserts, analysts say
The Trump administration's attempt to withhold funding allocated through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program will intensify the division between the charging haves and have-nots. President Donald Trump's targeting of the program's funds, the subject of a lawsuit filed this week, demonstrates the president's commitment to reducing government support for an EV transition. The program is small compared to the charging infrastructure network being developed by private companies such as Tesla and ChargePoint and with site hosts such as Walmart, Circle K and Pilot. There are now 75 National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program-funded sites open with 395 ports, making up roughly 0.7 percent of the total number of public DC fast charging stations in the U.S., according to Paren, an EV charging analytics firm. The Federal Highway Administration has been steadily approving state plans — as of Feb. 6, the agency was obligated to pay $3.27 billion of the $5 billion for states' approved plans through 2025. Sign up for the weekly Automotive News Mobility Report newsletter for the latest developments at the intersection of transportation and technology. The infrastructure program was designed to solve a pressing problem — private industry has been unable or unwilling to build chargers in areas without significant EV adoption. If the Trump administration succeeds in pulling back the funds, a transition from combustion engine autos to EVs will take longer. 'What it's leading to is a charger utilization divide,' said Loren McDonald, chief analyst at Paren. 'The rich are going to get richer and the poor are going to get poorer, meaning that we're going to see more and more stations being built in Miami and Atlanta and Los Angeles and San Francisco and Austin and New York and Boston — not so much in Bismarck, N.D.' Congress appropriated $5 billion over five years for the EV infrastructure program through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The program was designed to prioritize infrastructure along highways, padding the already developing charging landscape in urban areas and in states with significant EV adoption. The intent was 'not to build a lot of stations but to be very strategic about where they were,' said McDonald. States were required to submit plans for how they intended to use the money allocated by Congress, and then they could access the funds. On Trump's first day in office, he signed a flurry of executive orders, including 'Unleashing American Energy,' which targeted measures perceived to enforce an 'electric vehicle mandate.' The order said that 'all agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated' through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 'including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program.' Then, on Feb. 6, the Federal Highway Administration said in a letter to states that it would rescind the EV infrastructure program guidance and suspend past and future approvals of state plans using the Biden-era guidance. Now, states are suing. 'The President directed agencies to withhold congressionally appropriated funds, including NEVI Formula Program funds, as a tool to terminate programs the President dislikes,' the complaint says. 'Agencies have no authority to rescind or revise statutes, or to withhold funds duly appropriated by Congress based on the President's disagreement with the policies and priorities of Congress.' Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin filed suit against the U.S. Department of Transportation, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, the Federal Highway Administration and the acting administrator of the Federal Highway Administration Gloria Shepherd on May 7. The states cite several real-world consequences of the administration's orders to withhold funding. An awardee in California, for example, has requested to withdraw its project because of the Federal Highway Administration letter, the suit alleges. The state also reported that site hosts for charging stations decided not to enter agreements after learning that the highway administration was withholding the funds. 'The withholding of NEVI Formula Program funds threatens the successful execution of grant agreements with the awardees of California's second solicitation and will likely result in potential applicants declining to participate in the third solicitation at all,' the suit says. States are not the only entities slated to be impacted if the administration succeeds. After all, National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program funds were intended to encourage EV adoption and soothe range anxiety for parts of the country currently underserved by charging companies. 'If you're going to interfere with and interrupt the uptake and adoption of electric vehicles, getting rid of stimulated charging infrastructure in remote areas is a very good way to do it,' said Conrad Layson, senior alternative propulsion analyst at AutoForecast Solutions. Have an opinion about this story? Tell us about it and we may publish it in print. Click here to submit a letter to the editor.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
For communities relying on federal funds, things changing ‘every 5 minutes'
SPRINGFIELD — The city will reapply for state money to rebuild West Street on the Springfield approach to the North End Bridge over the Connecticut River. The city hopes to replace $4 million in federal money that was to have gone to the street improvement, part of a $20 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that's been scrapped, said Christopher M. Cignoli, public works director. Cignoli said he feels confident not only in the state money but in continued federal support for such basic transportation projects as roads, bridges and culverts. He bases this on experience with the earlier Trump administration as well as faith in the state through whose hands much federal transportation money flows. But he was at the UMass Henry M. Thomas III Center at Tower Square for hours Wednesday along with heads of other city departments and leaders in other municipalities, the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and heads of not-for-profits hoping to find out the future of federal funding for the Pioneer Valley from the state's director of federal funds and infrastructure, Quentin Palfrey. 'I'm just trying to get the lay of the land,' said Andrew Morehouse, executive director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. The Food Bank, with its headquarters in Chicopee, is to date missing $440,000 in delivered food due to service cuts and budget restructuring ordered by the new Trump administration. 'We are fundraising. We are doing food collections, trying to get what we need,' Morehouse said. 'We are bracing for cuts to SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).' Mayor Domenic J. Sarno summed up the mood of the 30-or-so officials in the conference room. 'Things aren't changing daily now, they're changing every five minutes,' Sarno said. Palfrey, a one-time official in the Obama and Biden administrations and Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, said major Biden-era legislation — the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act — raised funding in the state and are still on the books. The infrastructure bill alone allocated $6 billion in federal funds to support over 190 projects across the state. 'Yeah, it's a dynamic environment,' he said. 'And you know, that is a challenge, I think, for a lot of our partners in cities, towns and tribes. And one of the resources that I think that our office offers is really to work in partnership with communities to give good information on what's going on. ' Palfrey's office takes a whole-government approach to pursuing federal funds using MassDOT and MassTech, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. 'We have a number of issues around urban forestry, around water, around broadband, around clean energy and environmental justice, resiliency, decarbonization,' Palfrey said. 'So it really runs the gamut of programs that's been true in terms of the new resources that Congress has made available.' Major transportation projects, like the Cape Cod bridges and, in Springfield, west-east passenger rail, were also top-of-mind. For passenger rail, the federal government has already announced a CRISI — Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements — grant of $108 million in federal funding announced two years ago and another $37 million for rail improvements reliving a 'chokepoint' at Springfield Union Station announced in October. MassDOT also previously received a $1.75 million CRISI grant for preliminary engineering for the Springfield Area Track Reconfiguration Project. The Healey administration steadfastly says it's 'full steam ahead,' the governor's words, on west-east rail. 'And we're working hard to move those programs forward,' Palfrey said. But the Trump administration says it wants to link transportation funding to places with higher marriage and birth rates. More Western Mass. Content Read the original article on MassLive.
Miami Herald
26-02-2025
- Miami Herald
‘People are frightened': Sweeping Trump job cuts hit South Florida national parks
Sweeping job cuts at national parks across the country now include about 20 staffers in South Florida's beloved swampy wilderness. Rangers tracking the National Park Service layoffs ordered by the Trump administration say the cuts include staff at Everglades and Dry Tortugas national parks, Biscayne National Park, the Big Cypress National Preserve and the South Florida Natural Resources Center. Cuts include scientists doing critical Everglades research and rangers working on education programs for local schools. 'This wasn't a surgical kind of thing,' said former ranger Gary Bremen, who retired after 36 years with the park service and has been tallying terminations. 'This was a scattershot kind of thing.' A local park spokesperson referred questions about the cuts to the Park Service's Washington headquarters. The office did not respond to two requests for comment. The layoffs could leave already small teams strapped during the busy winter season that draws tourists from around the world and at a time when South Florida parks face increasing impacts from climate change. Across the country, the cuts could lead to shortened hours or even closures, said Rick Mossman, president of the Association of National Park Rangers. 'These actions will hurt visitors and the parks they travelled to see across the United States,' he said in a statement. 'If a visitor suffers a medical emergency while hiking in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, ranger response could be delayed.' The cuts also come at a time when the Service continues to struggle with a massive maintenance backlog that has swelled to $23 billion. After weeks of speculation, the sudden termination notices have left staffers shocked and saddened. At the research center at Everglades National Park, one of handful of such centers around the country, half the team working on Everglades restoration efforts is leaving, two sources said. Three staffers were cut and three took early retirement, they said. 'We're worried about them going in and deleting everything,' said one scientists who is leaving and worries that valuable information will be lost. The cuts come at a critical time for the center, with Everglades restoration work speeding up under record spending. Among the center's missions is to ensure that changes outside the park don't harm the wildlife and sawgrasses marshes, seagrass meadows and other habitat inside the park. Over the last few years, the team at the resource center has been especially busy after Congress authorized $1.8 billion in 2021 for restoration under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. It shifted or created 13 positions just to keep up with the heavy workload. Scientists at the center also work on two other increasingly thorny problems for South Florida parks: invasive species and impacts from climate change. Termination letter on Valentine's Day At one of the national parks, a staffer who said she'd been assured her position was safe, discovered a termination letter sent after hours on Valentine's Day when notices went out around the country before the President's Day holiday. The notice was buried in a generic email as one of four attachments, she said. The staffer had moved across the country for the South Florida job less than a year ago, after completing a lengthy application process for what she hoped would be her dream job working with students. To take the job, she said she'd sacrificed her savings since the pay barely covered her rent. Like others, she worries termination letters are worded to prevent workers from filing for unemployment benefits or jeopardize retirement funds. The four-page termination letter said she was under-performing and not demonstrating the fitness required to meet her department's needs, even though, she said, she had received glowing marks in her last performance evaluation. Bremen said several of the layoffs included younger staffers. 'These are often folks that are very new in their careers,' he said. 'They are new and enthusiastic and vital. These are often education jobs. There are maintenance positions.' The layoffs have left other staffers shaken, he said. ' People are frightened,' Bremen said. 'You don't go into the National Park Service to make a million dollars, right? The old adage is we get paid in sunsets.' For many, he said, working for the park service is a calling, not a job. ' I can rattle off names of kids who've gone into fields related to parks and whatnot that I met when they were four or five years old. I still keep in touch with them. I go to weddings. I've been invited to school plays, I've gone to a funeral,' he said. 'And that's not just me. That's rangers all across the country that are part of people's lives and making a difference and that's one of the many things that's being lost.' This story was first published by WLRN and was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Federal funding freeze could impact $500 million grant to fix I-83 bridge
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – The $500 million from Washington, D.C., to help repair the John Harris Memorial Bridge, which connects Harrisburg to the West Shore, could be in limbo as the Trump Administration weighs major pauses in federal funding. 'Funds that were discretionary awards that haven't been obligated are sort of in question right now,' Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation Michael Carroll said. 'My suspicion is that the Federal Highway Administration and the Trump Administration could pick and choose which ones they advance and which ones they don't.' The half-a-billion federal dollars announced through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act under Former President Joe Biden, would allow repairs to begin in 2026. Currently, the John Harris Memorial Bridge is listed in 'poor' condition, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. 'I don't think there should be any concern,' Republican State Rep. Jim Struzzi of Indiana County said. 'I think they're merely taking a look at the grant process and how these grants are being used, which I think is important.' Struzzi, the Minority Chair for the House Appropriations Committee, works alongside Majority Chair Democratic Rep. Jordan Harris, who represents Philadelphia County. Both listened to Secretary Carroll discuss potential funding downfalls at a budget hearing on Wednesday. 'The bottom line is if the money doesn't arrive or the money is frozen, that would be a tremendous loss to the Commonwealth that we just can't make up,' Harris said. Over 125,000 cars cross the bridge daily. Secretary Carroll said that if federal funding does not come through, the bridge will still need to be repaired. 'We will do that,' Carroll said. 'It has to happen, and it will.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
NV deprived of $38M in EV charging funds following Trump program suspension
Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) said Wednesday that the state's NEVI strategy was 'ready to be released when the federal government paused the program, placing the process on hold pending further federal guidance.' (Photo: Ronda Churchill/Nevada Current) The Trump administration halted a federal program that promised Nevada $38 million to build faster, more efficient electric vehicle chargers along the state's highways. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued a memo last week announcing the suspension of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI) while the U.S. Department of Transportation reevaluates the program, leaving Nevada's $38 million in funds in limbo. The suspension follows a series of funding freezes under the Trump administration targeting climate-related programs financed under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act, including $7 million in funding for electric school buses, and $20 million for community solar on reservations. Officials with the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) said Wednesday that the state's NEVI strategy was 'ready to be released when the federal government paused the program, placing the process on hold pending further federal guidance.' Nevada is now back at square one and will need to submit new plans specifying how the state plans to deploy unspent funds in accordance with new guidance under the Trump administration, a time-consuming process that will likely delay the states' ability to access charger funds indefinitely. 'NDOT is awaiting further guidance from FHWA and will submit a new state plan for approval once updated federal requirements are provided,' said Kelsey McFarland, a public information officer for the Nevada Department of Transportation. The move by the Trump administration to delay states' access to congressionally obligated funds could be an attempt to circumvent lawsuits temporarily banning his use of broad funding freezes. Unlike earlier funding freezes, the suspension of the NEVI program still allows states to be reimbursed for 'existing obligations' under the EV charger program, meaning states can fulfill existing contracts with companies that won grants to install chargers. However, Nevada has not awarded any of its federal funding, cutting the state off from its entire $38 million in funding and leaving it especially vulnerable to the suspension. Several other states had already managed to award millions in funding under the NEVI program before its suspension. While 37 states issued millions in NEVI awards — with 13 having at least one operational station by the time the program was suspended — Nevada did not. McFarland said Nevada 'faced unique challenges in rolling out NEVI funds, particularly in rural areas where sufficient energy capacity is not readily available to support new EV chargers.' McFarland also said Nevada was slow to deploy awards under the program because NDOT wanted to ensure their plan 'aligned with the state's infrastructure priorities' while 'balancing the need for speed with the responsibility to ensure projects would be eligible for reimbursement.' The purpose of the NEVI program is to build faster, more efficient chargers along highway corridors, specifically DC fast chargers which can charge an electric vehicle from zero to 80% in about 20 minutes. The program was created through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Nevada's NEVI plan included large investments to establish fast charging stations along several highways: U.S. Route 95, from Las Vegas to Reno; Interstate 80, from West Wendover in Elko to Reno; and U.S. Route 93 from Las Vegas to Ely. The Trump administration first attempted to suspend the NEVI program last month through an executive order calling for the immediate halt of energy grants, loans, and contracts funded through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. That order was soon temporarily shut down by a U.S. District Court judge. Beyond targeting chargers, Trump has also promised to cancel a $7,500 federal tax credit for EV purchases and rescind fuel economy standards that are encouraging automakers to shift to EVs. On Tuesday, several Democratic members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wrote a letter to the recently appointed U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, demanding the immediate reinstatement of the program. The letter questioned the constitutionality of abruptly withholding or postponing funding for programs authorized and funded by Congress and enacted into law. 'Unfortunately, your refusal to release NEVI funds to states is part of a larger, ongoing pattern by the Trump Administration of subverting the Constitution's delegation to Congress of authority over federal spending. As sweeping and vague as recent Executive Orders may be in expressing the administration's policy preferences, they do not provide license under the Constitution to cut off funding for programs authorized and funded by Congress and enacted into law,' reads the letter.
