After taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden realized that it was quite difficult to force Americans to trade in their gas-powered vehicles for electric ones in places where EV chargers didn't exist — so he threw $7.5 billion at the issue as an "investment" in building out a network of EV chargers. That chunk of money paid by hardworking Americans was part of Biden's pledge to ensure 500,000 EV charger stations were opened in the U.S. by 2030. Well, it's now 2024, and Biden's forced transition continues to fail spectacularly at taxpayer expense.
President Biden, even before taking office, made it clear that he was on an ill-fated crusade to "end fossil fuels" and force a transition to "green" (read: not green) energy. Multiple Biden policies in pursuit of this expensive, bad-for-the-environment, and foolhardy transition have already failed to pass muster on constitutional grounds before the Supreme Court. Still, illegality hasn't stopped Biden from setting mountains of taxpayer dollars on fire in his administration's quixotic campaign to save the planet from what the president says is the "existential threat" of climate change.
As The Washington Post reported this spring, more than two years after the $7.5 billion was put toward Biden's pipe-dream EV charger network, "only 7 EV charging stations are operational across four states" — New York, Ohio, Hawaii, and Pennsylvania.
Citing information from the Federal Highway Administration, WaPo explained that those meager 7 stations have a total capacity to handle 38 electric vehicles, even though the $7.5 billion was planned to "be enough to build up to 20,000 charging spots or around 5,000 stations" according to Atlas Public Policy.
Republicans have already taken note of the Biden administration's EV charger boondoggle and demanded answers on behalf of taxpayers (via WaPo):
Republican members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the Biden administration with a list of questions about the slow rollout of EV chargers.
“We have significant concerns that under your efforts American taxpayer dollars are being woefully mismanaged,” wrote Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Morgan Griffith (R-Va.). “The problems with these programs continue to grow — delays in the delivery of chargers, concerns from States about labor contracting requirements and minimum operating standards for chargers,” the letter continued.
As Leah reported at the end of 2023, the first two years after the funding was allocated saw exactly 0 (zero) EV chargers built, so at least there's been some extremely limited progress to show taxpayers that their obliged contributions to Uncle Sam haven't been completely flushed down the toilet of Biden's "green" climate agenda. Still, the administration is nowhere near where it should be in its goal of 500,000 new EV chargers by 2030, nor even the 5,000 stations that the $7.5 billion was pledged to create.
